”Murf the Surf” with R.J. Cutler

Top Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers

Miami Beach in the early ‘60s was a magnet for dreamers, the idle rich, and the young-and-restless. It was also an irresistible draw for a young, handsome California surfer named Jack “Murf the Surf” Murphy who quickly took Miami Beach by storm… and then just took it. Joining a high-flying crew of brash jewel thieves, Murphy and his accomplices made off with thousands in stolen gems. The crooks later pulled off a daring heist of the Star of India and other priceless jewels from the American Museum of Natural History, which made Murphy a national celebrity (and a convicted criminal). But when Murphy was later tied to a double murder of two young women, the media’s portrayal of Murf as a fun-loving bad boy no longer seemed to fit the real picture.

Bringing his own lens to the story, highly-acclaimed filmmaker R.J. Cutler (“Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry”) crafts a thoroughly engrossing – and extremely thoughtful – four-part series about Murf the Surf that avoids many of the common tropes of the true crime genre. Returning to Top Docs for his second visit, R.J. explores the cautionary approach he took to the media savvy Murphy, why he thought it was important to re-center the narrative to honor Murphy’s victims and his strong belief in letting the audience come to their own conclusions about Murphy’s prison conversion to born-again Christianity.

“Murf the Surf” is available for streaming on MGM+.

Follow:

@rjcutler928 on Instagram and @rjcutler on twitter

@topdocspod on Instagram and twitter

Hidden Gem:

Crisis

The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.