Jaws: The 40th Anniversary of the Movie That Changed Hollywood

Time ^ | June 20, 2015 | Daniel D’Addario

[beaversmom]

Steven Spielberg's breakout film brought on an era of big spectacle

Forty years ago Saturday saw the release of Jaws, an adaptation of a beach-read made by a promising but relatively untested young director, Steven Spielberg. Forty years later, Jaws‘ impact can be felt across moviegoing.

The shark tale is perhaps most notable for its box-office success; Jaws became the top-grossing film of all time after its release (and did so more quickly than had its predecessors, with a marketing plan based on blanket advertising rather than a slow rollout). Jaws, with its technical mastery and ability to manipulate the audience into fearing something that for so much of the film’s running time they could not see, was a movie that demanded to be seen as soon as one could, just like later blockbusters including Star Wars (which, two years after Jaws, replaced it at the top of the all-time box office list).

Jaws established Spielberg as an economic force, which means more than one might think; he has proven, in the intervening years, to know exactly what the public wants, from ultimately vanquishable scares (Jurassic Park) to charismatic heroes (Indiana Jones) to sweet sentiment (E.T.). Jaws gave him the capital to do whatever he wanted; his next film was the more adventurous Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Directors less technically adept than Spielberg, though, took from Jaws the lesson that bigger is better. This summer’s biggest movies so far (Furious 7, Avengers: Age of Ultron and Jurassic World) are all heavy on chases, fights and/or explosions. Jaws had a mechanical shark, yes, but its impact as the first true blockbuster in Hollywood history...

[RandallFlagg]

I enjoyed The Last Exorcism, if that’s the one you’re referring to.
I don’t know about Harvey Stephens, but Jonathon Scott-Taylor (Damien Omen 2) was a lawyer in California.

[Teacher317]

You forgot Pippin, the black dog!!

[MichiganCheese]

My favorite part of the movie; Quint’s telling of his Indianapolis experience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9S41Kplsbs

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

It’s amazing how if you took the script today and changed all reference to sharks to “IRS” it would still work as a movie.

[beaversmom]

I took a date to see Jaws when it came out. The Pepsi she drank made her giggle and laugh throughout the show. It was embarrassing. (First and last date with her. lol) lol...maybe she was just nervous.

A few years before, Spielberg directed the movie ‘Duel’ about a psychotic truck driver chasing a wimpy traveling salesman (Dennis Weaver). I was 17, but was already familiar with driving straight trucks, loaded or empty, and of course, cars. As well as Jaws, I'm also a big Duel fan. I know in so many movies they are not technically correct, but I enjoy the characters and the psychology. I love Duel for that and it was based on a real encounter author Richard Matheson had. I posted some videos on FR about it in 2008: On Spielberg's Duel (Videos 1, 2) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2667179/posts

[beaversmom]

An EXCELLENT scene. So well done by Robert Shaw!

[beaversmom]

lol...you might be right!

[beaversmom]

I enjoyed The Last Exorcism, if that’s the one you’re referring to. It was one made in the 2000s that was supposed to be good. I didn't know so many were made! I never saw it, but heard one of them was pretty good.

[beaversmom]

Found trivia about the first Damien from IMDB:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0827032/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

Harvey Stephens was born on November 12, 1970 in England as Harvey Spencer Stephens. He is an actor, known for The Omen (1976), The Omen (2006) and Omenisms (2006). He has been married to Emma since 2002. They have one child.
Parents are Jim and Jackie Stephens.
Had his blonde hair straightened and dyed black to play Damien Thorn.
Employed as a futures trader on the London stock market [April 2002]
Is a property developer in Kent, England. [March 2004]

[rlmorel]

Isn’t that the plot for “Sharknado”?

(Only kidding...I have no idea what that movie is about, but tornadoes full of sharks descending on cities and towns all over the USA on April 15 kind of sounds like that!

[rlmorel]

I had a chance to converse for several hours with the Ship’s Doctor who survived the sinking of the Indianapolis.

It was powerful.

[beaversmom]

Wow, I bet. Would you share any of it?

[RandallFlagg]

I was mistaken. I was going from memory.
Jonathan Scott-Taylor is a lawyer in the UK.

[Vince Ferrer]

I also think Susan Backlinie did a super job as "Crissie," the first victim. Originally Spielberg was going to have the mechanical shark eat her very visibly, and show the shark right away. Fortunately, the mechanical shark had constant problems, and Spielberg has to re-think the scene.

This led to having Susan hooked up with cables to have an off-camera crew drag her around, and a camera right at water level to put the audience treading water right with her. But the scene succeeds or fails not with special effects, but with "Crissy" selling it to the audience that she was being eaten by a shark.

Chrissie's last swim

The audience is hooked at this point, and is at the edge of their seat from then on.

[MichiganCheese]

Wow! I would love to hear of his experience.

[rlmorel]

I went to see Jaws the day it came out, and the line wrapped around two corners of the Shopper's World Cinema in Framingham, MA.

The movie terrified me, but boy, did I ever enjoy it. It gripped me...everyone remembers this part of the movie:

When that shark came out of the water, I involuntarily jerked my hand back so hard that I whacked the guy sitting in the seat next to me. He didn't even notice.

After the movie, a big group of us went back to my family's house to go for a swim in the in-ground lighted pool, and it was probably ten at night. I couldn't believe it. I actually felt nervous swimming in a lighted swimming pool at night!

The next night, we all went up to a lake to play a prank on a guy we knew...we were going to swim across a lake (maybe 300 yards) and sink his little dinghy...we weren't going to damage it, just let the water in and sink it. As we swam across that New England lake that night, with the moon shining down, glittering on the water, I was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

It was completely irrational. But I was nervous. And then my buddy started thrashing around saying something was biting him, and I hissed at him to shut up, mainly because he was bugging me out!

Now, when I was a kid, I lived in the Philippines for several years, and I lived in the ocean during that time, every chance I got. I had no problem at all swimming at night in tropical waters twenty feet deep. Contemplating that a just four years in the past scared me just thinking about it after seeing "Jaws".

[rlmorel]

I worked in medicine, and the type of examination required that I spend several hours with him. I loved that part of the job, because I met and talked to many men of that generation (my father’s generation) at length.

Somehow, we got on the subject of military service, and I told him I had served on aircraft carriers, and he said he had been in the Navy in WWII. When I asked where he had served, he said “The USS Indianapolis”.

I recall stuttering for a second, because I had been for some years an amateur WWII historian (particularly the Pacific theater) and, like Hooper in the movie, I was well aware of what had happened to that ship and its crew.

He told me it was an awful experience, and that to to the day we spoke back in the early Nineties, he still could not even hear “The Lord’s Prayer” without choking up. And I seem to recall him telling me that he had become a minister or lay minister after the war, and it really struck me that it would have that effect on him and that he would take on those religious duties in spite of it. He said they had just said The Lord’s Prayer over and over and over again for days in the water, and that is why he couldn’t hear it.

At that point, he became very choked up and his face began to turn beet red...I could see he was very distressed. I assured him he didn’t have to continue discussing it at all, and he said emphatically that he WANTED to talk about it. He said that he hadn’t spoken to nearly anyone about it for decades, even his family.

He didn’t go into any of the details like Quint did in the movie, but his mind was clearly on the guys who did not come out of the water. He said that he often wondered why he survived that nightmare, and so many others didn’t. He said he thought of those men often.

I did read just recently while searching that he gave an extensive interview shortly before he passed on (after I had the privilege of meeting him) but I can’t find it.

[rlmorel]

There is so much pop culture associated with Jaws...it is iconic.

That music! "We're gonna need a bigger boat!" and so on.

This anecdote of mine kind of illustrates how deep into our collective consciousness Jaws has been ingrained!

I had a good friend who told me he was having a nightmare one night when he was living at home going to college. His bedroom was in the cellar of his family's house. Here is how he described it to me:

"I was in a large, completely dark underground parking garage. Way over on the other side of this large garage was a single, small, barred window that had a beam of light streaming in.

Suddenly, I heard it: BUM BUM BUM BUM BUM BUM BUM BUM BUM...

It started off fairly faintly, but was growing louder! I just knew there was a giant man-eating Great White Shark in that underground parking lot! I panicked, and ran as fast as I could to that little window with light coming in, but as I grabbed the bars, I realized I couldn't get out!

BUM BUM BUM BUM BUM BUM BUM BUM BUM BUM BUM BUM BUM...

In panic, I screamed at the top of my lungs "HEEEEEEELLLLLP! HELP! HELLLLLLP!

At that point, I woke up standing on my bed, my face stuffed into the little small cellar window of my bedroom facing our neighbor's house. It was about five o'clock in the morning, and their bedroom light came on!"

Whenever we get together these days, this is one of the stories about him we still tell!

[beaversmom]

Wonderful posts/memories. I read them all with much interest. Thank you SO much for taking the time to share those things. I really enjoy hearing people’s personal experiences. :)

[beaversmom]

The audience is hooked at this point, and is at the edge of their seat from then on.

It is a *masterful*, terrifying scene.