Jaws
Jaws is one of the very few movies that has had an effect on me after so many years. When I was very young, I watched this movie with a shark. A movie that, till this day, I still don’t like going into the water whenever I go to the beach. Lets just say it’s in my top 5 ways I DON’T want to die! But I still have a fascination with sharks and I will always watch Shark Week each year.
Photo Credit: Universal Pictures
Released: Jun 20, 1975
Runtime: 2 hrs 4 mins
Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Peter Benchley, Carl Gottlieb
Actors: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss
PLOT
You're gonna need a bigger boat.--Brody
When a shark starts killing people at a beach community, it's up to a local sheriff, a marine biologist, and an old fisherman to hunt it down.
MY THOUGHTS
For a shark movie, Jaws has only 5 kills. For most people, the most well known shark kill is the very first one with the girl swimming at night. There’s blood in the movie (obviously, it’s a shark movie, LOL) but it’s not graphic so they can get a PG rating instead of an R rating. One of the kills is off screen and not seen. Alex, the kid, and one other guy are shown dying in public. And finally we have Quint, who dies near the end of the movie when the shark attacks the boat. Sadly there is a dog who dies off screen.
The acting in Jaws is pretty stellar with several good actors. Roy Schieder (known for ) plays Sheriff Brody, a man afraid of the ocean but wants to save people from the shark. Robert Shaw (known for ) plays Quint, a grizzled old fisherman with a bad history with sharks. Richard Dreyfuss (known for ) as Hooper, a rich guy who studies sharks.
I have to mention the supporting cast as well. Especially Lorraine Gary (known for ) as Ellen, Brody’s wife. And Murray Hamilton (known for ) as Mayor Vaughn. The type of guy who will disregard the attacks in order to keep the beaches open. I feel these two actors work well with the main cast.
Jaws begins at night during a beach party. We see a couple head to the water to skinny dip. The guy is too drunk to go in the water and basically passes out. The girl goes into the water and is attacked by a shark.
The next day the girl's remains are found and the coroner confirms that her death was caused by a shark attack. Sheriff Brody declares the beach closed. This worries Mayor Vaughn. July 4th weekend is around the corner and this season for the beach community is vital for the economy. He convinces the coroner and Sheriff Brody not to close the beaches.
Unfortunately, in full view of the public, the shark attacks again. Now killing a young boy. This causes a panic and the mother of the boy puts a bounty of $3000 on the shark. This causes several out of town people, as well as townspeople getting reckless. Quint, a local fisherman, offers to kill it for $10,000.
Meanwhile, Hooper, an oceanographer, looks at the remains of the girl and says it is a shark and it’s a large one. The locals catch a big shark, and everyone is happy, thinking it’s the shark. Hooper shows up and measures the shark's mouth. He doesn’t think it’s big enough. He tells Brody that the only way to know is to cut the shark open and see what it has eaten. The Mayor says no and that’s the end of it for now.
Later that night, after drinking a lot, both Brody and Hooper go back to the shark and open it up. Where there is stuff in it (like a license plate), there’s no body parts or anything like that. They conclude that it’s not the shark, and it’s still out there. They decide to take a boat out and see if they can find the shark.
They find a partially sunken boat. Hooper jumps into the water to check it out. He finds a shark tooth in the boat, but is startled when the severed head appears. He drops the tooth and surfaces.
Hooper and Brody confront Vaughn with the information but he refuses to close the beaches. The next day is the 4th of July and hundreds of people pack the beaches. Two young kids decide to pull a horrible prank with a fake shark fin. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief when the actual shark shows up and kills one man and seriously scares Brody’s oldest son.
Brody finally is able to talk Vaughn into hiring Quint to hunt the shark. Both Brody and Hooper go with Quint on his hunting trip. Throughout most of the trip, Hooper and Quint bicker. While Brody is chumming the water, the shark shows up and Quint is able to shoot it with a dart that connects to a barrel. Unfortunately, the shark goes underwater and gets away.
When nightfall occurs, Hooper and Quint get drunk and trade injury tales, finally bonding. That’s when the shark attacks again, this time hitting the boat, and taking out the power. Then it disappears again. They spend the rest of the night trying to fix the engine.
Brody tries to call for help, but Quint breaks the radio. After another attack and the boat’s engine is flooded, Quint, trying to head back to land, pushes the engine to its limits. The engine is damaged beyond repair. Now the boat is slowly sinking.
They try another plan. Hooper will get in his shark cage, and try to inject, in the shark's mouth, a poison. Unfortunately, yet again, the plan goes awry. The shark attacks the cage, causing Hooper to drop the spear. While the shark is destroying the cage, Hooper escapes from it.
The shark eventually slams onto the ship, causing Quint to slide down and get eaten by the shark. Brody, trapped on the sinking ship, shoves a SCUBA tank into the shark's mouth. He climbs into the crow’s nest, and shoots the tank. This causes the tank to explode, finally killing the shark.
Brody, happy to be alive, finally sees Hooper, who he thought was dead, swim up to him. They then take the remaining barrels and swim back to shore.
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I wanted to take a quick break to let you know I found these great deals on Amazon for Jaws merchandise. I’ve applied to Amazon’s affiliate program and if I can get three purchases I will be accepted into the program. This will be of tremendous help with starting my small business.
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Overall, I think Jaws is a great movie. I feel they showed the shark just enough to cause tension and heighten the scare, without being cheesy. I also feel like it’s kind of like two separate movies. The first half is with the townspeople and the deaths And the other half is of just Quint, Hooper, Brody, and the shark. This movie made me so scared of sharks. The acting and the practical effects were really well done. I would highly recommend anyone watching this movie.
And now for your Forever Final Girl Exclusive…Did you know?:
According to director Steven Spielberg, in the scene where Chrissie's remains are discovered, they buried a female crew member in the sand with only her arm exposed.
Director Steven Spielberg shot roughly 25% of the film from water level to provide the viewers the perspective as if they were treading water.
The first shark killed on the docks, which is supposed to be the "man-eater" in the movie, was actually a real shark killed in Florida. According to Carl Gottlieb's "The Jaws Log," by the time it had been shipped to the set and prepared for filming, it was starting to decompose quite badly and the smell was appalling. As it was hung from its tail, its internal organs broke loose and piled up in the back of its throat, adding to the discomfort of those forced to work in close proximity to it.
The shark was actually tested in water before it arrived on Martha's Vineyard and worked perfectly. However, the tests were done in the non-salt water tank at Universal Studios. Once it was placed in actual ocean water, the salt wreaked havoc with the shark's controls.
During the crowded beach scenes, extras weren't told what they would be doing or what the film was about. When Chief Brody started shouting about a shark in the water, the panicked reaction of the beach goers was completely genuine, as they thought there was an actual shark in the water.
One of the ways Spielberg builds up tension and anxiety in the audience is by the use of the "jolt cut" in film editing. These edits abruptly go from a quiet, reflective image to a more startling image and sound, or the opposite, noisy to quiet.
Quint's mannerisms were based on Craig Kingsbury, a local fisherman and eccentric. Kingsbury got a small role as Ben Gardner whose head is later found underwater.
During pre-production, director Steven Spielberg, accompanied by friends Martin Scorsese, George Lucas and John Milius, visited the effects shop where "Bruce" the shark was being constructed. Lucas stuck his head in the shark's mouth to see how it worked and, as a joke, Milius and Spielberg snuck to the controls and made the jaw clamp shut on Lucas' head. Unfortunately, the shark malfunctioned, and Lucas got stuck in the mouth of the shark. When Spielberg and Milius were finally able to free him, the three men ran out of the workshop, afraid they had done major damage to the creature.
Director John Landis showed up during the filming of the two islanders fishing for the shark and was put to work hammering the pier.
Roy Scheider stated in an interview that in the scene where Lee Fierro (Mrs. Kintner) smacks him in the face, she was actually hitting him. Apparently, the actress could not fake a slap and so the seventeen takes were some of the most painful of his career.
Director Steven Spielberg named the shark "Bruce" after his lawyer.
Several decades after the film's release, Lee Fierro, who played Mrs. Kintner walked into a restaurant and on the menu had an "Alex Kintner Sandwich." She commented that she had played his mother; the owner of the restaurant ran out, and he was none other than Jeffrey Voorhees, who had played her son. They had not seen each other since the original movie shoot.
According to Carl Gottlieb, the line "You're gonna need a bigger boat" was ad-libbed by Roy Scheider.
Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss could not stand each other and the two argued all the time.
Director Steven Spielberg said that when he first read the novel, he found himself rooting for the shark because the human characters were so unlikable.
The scene where the head pops out from under the boat was not originally scripted, but Spielberg said he wanted one more scare.
Peter Benchley's housekeeper had a son who was on the USS Indianapolis. She called him the day after she saw "Jaws" and asked for a day off. When he asked why, she told him, "My son was on the USS Indianapolis and I never knew how he died until now."
The shark has 4 minutes of screen time.
The story that Quint tells about his experiences aboard a sinking cruiser is a fictionalized version of the actual World War II Portland-class cruiser USS Indianapolis. Of the 1,196 crewmen aboard only 316 survived while 300 died during the sinking and the other 579 dying from exposure, dehydration, drinking salt water and some from shark attacks. The majority of the dialogue in the film was largely written by Robert Shaw.
Peter Benchley appears as a reporter on the beach.
Let’s get into the rankings:
Kills/Blood/Gore: 4/5
Sex/Nudity: 1/5
Scare factor: 5/5
Enjoyment factor: 5/5
My Rank: 4.5/5
IMDB: 8.1/10
Rotten Tomatoes: critics: 9.7/10 audience: 9/10
Letterboxd: 4/5