— Duh-dum … duh-dum … Movie audiences didn’t know what hit them —
or bit them — 35 years ago this week as “Jaws” became the cinematic
sensation of 1975. The lazy, hazy days of summer and summer movies
would never be quite the same.
On
the first true summer blockbuster, “Jaws,” to 466 theaters across the
country. Wide distribution of a film was practically unheard of in
those days. Usually, a studio would release a film piecemeal, with
limited engagements in the big cities before finally entering
neighborhood theaters.
And, for better or worse, because of the phenomenal success of “Jaws” — it became the first film to surge past the
box-office mark — movies became massive events. And studios began to
make summer blockbusters to capture the attention of a mass audience.
It’s hard to imagine now, but before “Jaws,” summertime was considered
the box-office dog days.
The shark tale of “Jaws” first captured the world’s
attention in 1974, when Peter Benchley’s novel introduced us to a great
white shark dining on vacationers at
and the three men attempting to destroy the huge, sleek beast.
Benchley’s fish story spent 44 weeks on the bestseller list. That same
year, Benchley and
Throughout the fall of ’74, there were grim dispatches from the set. The production in
Still, the film thrived. To hide the mechanical
shark, Spielberg and company took the approach of “what you don’t see
is scarier than what you do see” and used music, point-of-view tricks
and even floating barrels to suggest the shark without giving a good
look at the ocean predator. Thanks to
I was at the very first public showing of “Jaws” at a long-demolished movie palace, The Cooper, in
And I can recall everyone in that matinee crowd screaming — including
myself — at the opening moments when the young woman is attacked by the
shark while skinny-dipping in the ocean. I let out another shriek when
the shark reared its massive body out of the sea while Brody, Quint and
Hooper are on the orca, causing Brody to intone, “You’re gonna need a
bigger boat.”
Perhaps the finest moment in the film was the
quietest, when Quint gravely recalled his time aboard the USS
Indianapolis, which was sunk
Though there have been conflicting reports on who wrote that speech, it
is generally credited that Shaw, who was also a playwright and
novelist, penned most of it.
“Jaws” also changed the career of composer
who won an Oscar for his unnerving and unforgettable score. Is there
any other piece of music that is so recognizable with just the first
two notes?
It was just the beginning of a beautiful collaboration between Spielberg and Williams, which still continues.
But perhaps the height of “Jaws”-mania took place when I started graduate film school at the
in the fall of 1976. My “on-campus” housing was at an old apartment
complex, the Regal Trojan, which was actually off-campus on
As I entered the apartment with my parents, I checked out the bathroom.
A “Jaws” fan had to have lived there before; the toilet lid had a decal
of the “Jaws” shark on the top and a decal of the ocean was on the seat
itself! And there it stayed for the 18 months I lived at the Regal
Trojan.
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