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JAWS
“Jaws” is 50 years old today.
I have to admit it sounds a bit strange to say that, as Jaws still feels like such a contemporary film, very much part of the modern era and not the “New American Cinema” of the 70s that was driven primarily by maverick directors who sank studios with unsuccessful films that had elaborate budgets. On the contrary, in 1975 Jaws became the film that defined the modern standard of the “Summer Blockbuster”, a concept that would become firmly entrenched in the industry two summers later with the release of "Star Wars".
Jaws was an important film in my life and career. I was always a big fan of movies in general, and I had become obsessed with special effects films like "King Kong". But Jaws was the film that really made me aware of filmmaking and what could be accomplished with some determination and sleight of hand.
Jaws was based on the 1974 novel written by Peter Benchley. In both the book and the film, a large great white shark claims territory off the small fictional Long Island town of Amity, first killing a woman who was taking a midnight swim after meeting and flirting with a young man at a beach party. Soon, three more victims have fallen prey to the shark, effectively ruining the summer tourist season, so newly arrived police chief Martin Brody convinces town mayor Larry Vaughn to let him hire eccentric local fisherman Quint to kill the beast. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute expert Matt Hooper tags along on the hunt, and the three men engage in a life or death battle.
There are a few differences between the book and the film, and the changes are for the better. Benchley had a gift for creating tense moments with unique descriptions, but on land his human characters were involved in what was little more than a soap opera. Benchley wrote the first few drafts of the screenplay, but it was really Carl Gottlieb that developed the characters and brought a sense of humor to the story.
The production of the film was legendary. A $4 million dollar, 55-day shoot stretched to 159 days and ended up costing more than double the original budget. Weather, too many tourists, and sinking boats delayed the shoot, as well as mounting tension between actors. And then there were the mechanical sharks, exposed to the harsh conditions of the open ocean and so prone to malfunctioning that they eventually inspired a documentary entitled “The Shark Is Still Working” and a play called “The Shark Is Broken.”
One fortunate side effect of the mechanical delays is that the crew was forced to shoot the shark in more creative and less revealing ways, and the difficulties also gave cast and crew more time to perfect the script and their characters. This would result in a film that was more Hitchcock and less monster movie, with the script and acting achieving an amazing level of realism.
For the scene where Matt Hooper goes down in the shark cage, a studio tank and mechanical shark were used, but also incorporated actual footage of a great white shark swimming around a miniature cage, filmed off the Great Barrier Reef in Australia by shark experts Ron and Valerie Taylor. The real shark became entangled in cables and the footage was incorporated into the film.
In the film's final act, the “Indianapolis Speech”, a riveting monologue performed by Robert Shaw’s Quint, recounts his experience of being aboard the USS Indianapolis, the real-life ship that secretly delivered the Hiroshima bomb to an air base on the island of Tinian in the Pacific Ocean. After leaving the island, the Indianapolis was torpedoed by a Japanese sub and sank in 12 minutes. The nearly 900 survivors of the torpedo attack floated for days before being rescued, with many of them being killed by sharks. Only 316 survived. The dialogue for this speech is credited to several different writers, including John Milius, who probably came up with the original idea, but it is believed that Shaw himself took all of the drafts of the scene and wrote his own version, which is the one that is in the final cut of the film.
Probably the most important element of the film's success was the presence of a then 27-year old director named Steven Spielberg. Spielberg had been directing episodic television and movies of the week for a few years, including the classic “Duel”. Prior to Jaws, he had directed one other theatrical feature, the critically acclaimed but financially unsuccessful “The Sugarland Express.” Producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown had bought the rights to the still unpublished novel in 1973. Spielberg spotted the manuscript in their office, read it, and became intrigued.
Spielberg later admitted to being naive about filming on the water, the difficulties involved in the special effects, and filmmaking in general. As the production crept over schedule and budget, Spielberg feared he would be fired every day.
When the film finally wrapped, the great editor Verna Fields began piecing the footage together. John Williams began writing the score, and when he first played the classic “du-duh…du-duh” theme, Spielberg thought he was joking. The infamous “head popping out of the hole” scene was actually part of a later reshoot that took place on the Universal backlot, but the insert of the head itself was filmed in Verna Field’s pool and financed by Spielberg himself.
Jaws was an unprecedented success when released. Adjusted for inflation, it is still near the top of the highest grossing films of all time. It also raised awareness of sharks and shark attacks to a hysterical level, leading both director Spielberg and writer Peter Benchley to state that they wished the film had not motivated so many people to kill sharks out of fear. They both emphasized that the film was fiction and that sharks should be protected.
Jaws also inspired an avalanche of imitations. Most of these were bad, but a few, such as Joe Dante’s “Piranha” were very entertaining and successful in their own right. The film also lead to three sequels, each with diminishing results. “Jaws 2”, in 1978, was the most successful, while 1987’s “Jaws: The Revenge” is often considered one of the worst films ever made.
Jaws was nominated for 4 Academy Awards, 3 of which it won - for editing, score, and sound. It lost the Best Picture Oscar to “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.” In a stunning upset, Spielberg was NOT nominated for directing. In 2001, the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry.
--Wyatt Weed
(June 20, 2025)
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