It’s become a recognized feature of movies based on books that the screen version necessarily simplifies the story as it appeared on the page. A book is bound only by its covers, while a movie is limited by the attention span of the audience.
This can go to extremes. The Finest Hours, which Michael Tougias co-wrote with Casey Sherman, describes the 1952 Coast Guard rescue of sailors from two foundered oil tankers off Cape Cod. But the film version, released earlier this year, focuses on only one of the ships.
That leaves plenty for Tougias to talk about when he roams New England giving slide presentations based on The Finest Hours, one of 24 books he has authored or co-authored.
“Here the control comes back to me again, so you’re telling the stories the way the guys lived it,” Tougias said after a presentation about The Finest Hours that I attended earlier this year.
Tougias, who lives outside Boston, will talk about The Finest Hours at the Aidron Duckworth Art Museum, an event sponsored by the Friends of the Meriden Library, on Oct. 28 at 6:30 p.m., and at the Vershire Town Center on Oct. 29 at 7 p.m.
In a talk about The Finest Hours at the library in Lower Waterford, Vt., this summer, Tougias talked about the rescue of the crew of the Pendleton, which is the basis for the film. But he also recounted the rescue of the Fort Mercer, like the Pendleton a 500-foot-long oil tanker caught in a brutal nor’easter in February 1952.
The Pendleton rescue was a natural for a feature film. A crew of four Coast Guardsmen, led by a 24-year-old boatswain’s mate named Bernie Webber, sailed a 36-foot motor launch out to the where the Pendleton had broken in half and rescued 32 of 33 crewmembers, carrying them back to shore in a boat built to hold only 12 people.
But the Fort Mercer, which also broke in two, was the scene of an equally remarkable rescue, in which a Coast Guard cutter saved four men from the Fort Mercer’s bow minutes before it sank. Another cutter rescued 18 men from the tanker’s stern, which was more seaworthy. (Thirteen of the Mercer’s crew decided to stay on the stern, which was towed safely to harbor and, amazingly, welded to a new bow and sent back to sea, where it later broke apart in another storm.)
What’s most surprising about the rescues is that some of the Coast Guardsmen, particularly those rescuing the Fort Mercer, carried cameras. Tougias’s talk on The Finest Hours is liberally illustrated with pictures of the crippled ships and of the rescue operations.
It’s possible there’s another New England author who puts on as many miles in the region as Tougias, but I doubt it. He is slated to give a dozen talks in October alone, many of them sponsored by state humanities councils. He is a member of the Vermont Humanities Council’s Speaker’s Bureau, and often gives talks in Vermont, where he has owned a small cabin since he was in his 20s.
At Davies Memorial Library in Lower Waterford — which is a story in itself, the lone honor-system library in the state, and perhaps the nation — Tougias set out a spread of his books, including River Days: Exploring the Connecticut River From Source to Sea as well several about daring rescues at sea.
His stories about heroism on the waves have more to do with the deeds than the location, he said.
“I ask myself, ‘Could I have done what they did?’ ” he said. “If I say ‘I could’ve made it,’ then I don’t do the story.”
Alex Hanson can be reached at ahanson@vnews.com or 603-727-3207.
