Barracuda

Nothing demonstrates the slippery nature of Larry Vaughn's character more that the way he inveigles Brody into keeping the beaches open. His language hovers somewhere between concern and coercion ('We're really a little anxious that you're rushing into something serious here. It's your first summer, you know.') and he speaks in the rehearsed soundbites of a practised politician ('Amity is a summer town. We need summer dollars.'). His initial  approach is to place the economic imperative above the need for civic responsibility ('If the people can't swim here, they'll be glad to swim at the beaches of Cape Cod, the Hamptons, Long Island.'). When Brody rejects this argument, the mayor enlists the help of Meadows and Santos, and the three conspirators begin to weave their cover story.

Whilst the newspaper man is adamant in his claim ('We never had that kind of trouble in these waters.'), the medical examiner is clearly less comfortable with the deception - possibly because he has seen the evidence of the girl's remains. Even as he constructs the story of a boating accident, his hesitant delivery (Well, I think possibly, yes, a boating accident.') betrays his mendacity. Just as Meadows's line will be echoed later on the dock by Brody in a moment of self-delusion ('There's no other sharks like this in these waters!'), so Santos's phrase will be thrown back in his face by Hooper ('This was no boat accident.'). Having made their contributions, the two men literally distance themselves from the mayor by moving away in the same order in which they first appeared in the earlier street scene, leaving Vaughn to draw Brody conspiratorially closer to the camera.

Vaughn is quick to develop a persuasive narrative in a series of short present tense sentences that avoid any unpleasantness ('A summer girl goes swimming. Swims out a little far. She tires. A fishing boat comes along...') and reduce the victim to a nameless cipher. Brody, growing defensive of his own position, begins to waver, and the mayor caps his argument with one of the movie's great quotes: 'It's all psychological. You yell barracuda, everybody says "Huh? What?" You yell shark, and we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July.'

Although there is a certain truth to the phrase (barracudas do occasionally injure bathers), it's such a piece of bizarre logic that Brody seems to accept dumbly. The line will, of course, come back to bite the mayor in the rear when the very scenario he warns against is realised. For the moment, though, he is in command and - the boy scout swimmers conveniently forgotten - orders the ferryman to take them back to the other side of the bay.