Jaws, No. 1 - Jaws (1975)

…Da-dum!

…Daaaaaaa-dum!

Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum babababababababbbbababab AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!

It’s Jaws!

This is one of the big ones. Sure, the four-film Jaws franchise is somewhat piddling in and of itself, but…Jaws, man! This is easily one of the two or three most important films in the history of sequels (and franchises) as a genre…and, sure, in movies qua movies as well. The only one more important is Star Wars, still two years away, but really it’s a part of the same movement. And in the light of so much overpowering popularity, and an overwhelming amount of writing on this beast, it helps to go way back…

To the ‘30s and ‘40s! The Golden Age of the Sequel, well and surely. (I know, we just left these horrifying times.) Back then, film was given the binary division between A-pictures and B-pictures – this distinction indicates budget, mostly, though it came to signify content as well. And it was the B’s, with their quick turnaround and reused sets and actors, which were able to crank out sequel after sequel with little care for quality. Oh sure, there were some A-franchises in this era, with The Thin Man and Universal’s monsters coming to mind, but look at the numbers: There are only six Thin Men (or whatever the plural of that franchise is), while it seems the normal B-movie franchise could average at least twenty entries. Such was the situation in the pre-television era, with innumerable B-level sequels accounting for one’s only source of filmed serialized entertainment – and surely we all need that.

Television rose as the Studio System dissolved, leading to the franchise-light ‘50s and ‘60s (which still saw rise of the big dogs, James Bond and Godzilla). The cheapo independents, now personalized by immortal Roger Corman, were themselves disinterested in sequelizing, and surely the Majors couldn’t care less – not with the need for prestige, and certainly not in the way they were attempting to compete against the television menace. (Then, as now, the studios were more interesting in shunning the new medium than in embracing its possibility.) And the major studios had less and less power as time ran on, losing their grips on movie theaters, film control ceding to actors, and the cultural nexus of filmed entertainment ceding somewhat to the New Wave movements throughout Europe and elsewhere.

Jaws put an end to all that. Content-wise, it is an exploitation movie, pure and simple, the sort of tale one could more easily see being made under American International than under Universal. Of course it had the budget, relatively, to be infinitely more stately than Corman could’ve made it, or did make it when the great Jaws rip-off machine took off in its wake. Quality aside, it’s not the sort of movie that should’ve been getting made by the major studios in the mid ‘70s. It just didn’t make sense.

The reason for this was one of distribution. Exciting stuff, I know. Okay, this is hard to grasp, and I know of it only by hearsay, but there was a time before movies got wide release. That’s pre-Jaws. Even great, successful films like The Godfather, it didn’t matter, none saw more than five prints made. It would appear in the major cities first, then “premiere” further and further afield, relying upon word of mouth. Jeepers, man! You mean back then, a movie did well if it was good?! Well that’s not fair! Why sink money into exploding cultural landmarks, or whatever, when audiences are only concerned about things like quality, you know, acting and story and such. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen wouldn’t have a chance!

So Jaws’ great innovation, on the part of producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown after the fact of its production, was to release it everywhere at once nationwide! On, like, 400 different screens, man! That way, everyone would see Jaws, right away, and if you didn’t see it, well, you’d damn well be told you had to. Of course, it helps that Jaws is a damn good movie anyway, and would’ve worked under the old distribution system, but still…

This system bypasses many unwanted adjuncts of the movie business (critics), and more surely guarantees success. It helps when you’re pioneering other movie milestones such as TV advertisements, and tie-in merchandise. T-shirts, man, and towels, and a book! Even two years later, such merchandising would seem small fry, but you gotta start somewhere.

So, in the grand history of Hollywood, Jaws is credited with starting the blockbuster genre, and turning the dumping ground of summer into cinema’s most commercially viable season. And it proved audiences would flock to the sort of film you could find at the drive-in, gussied up with better budgets, and actors, and (usually) writing. Essentially, it gave the major studios the excuse to produce the sorts of films only B-units would touch in the past. And with B-style storytelling back on the plate for the big guys, it’s only a matter of time before sequels become commonplace as well…Waiting about five years until 1980, and that particular Pandora’s box is irreversibly open and away.

Then, eventually, you start getting remakes of the franchises Jaws inspired in the first place, and the universe starts imploding upon itself.

*************************************************************

Okay, so in retrospect we can see how Jaws was responsible for bringing about New Hollywood, and the great Sequel Renaissance (just coined) – all this after the 25-year Dark Age of the Sequel. Ignoring now the heady world of marketing and distribution (and a modern audience’s interest in silly things like box office), let us at last consider the actual content of Jaws.

It comes from a book, as so many of Hollywood’s best ideas do, but like The Godfather before it, Jaws derives from a pretty useless and forgettable book. I mean, damn it, the book isn’t always better! And in a counterintuitive move of foresight that is now common practice, Universal’s producers procured the rights to “Jaws,” Peter Benchley’s maritime thriller, before it was even published. On a hunch.

Even “Jaws” the book was made on a hunch – Benchley’s editor felt this mediocre, left-handed author ought to channel his obsession with shark attacks into a fictional thriller rather than the staid and fluidless true-life thing he’d been considering. Thus “inspired,” Benchley took as his basis a 1916 shark attack upon the Jersey Shore (as opposed to “The Jersey Shore”), and set about creating his masterpiece, “The Stillness in the Water”…Or is it “Leviathan Rising?”…Or “The Jaws of Death?”…Or “The Jaws of Leviathan?” Whatever, Benchley and his editors kept on referring to this pretentiously-titled book as “Jaws” for shorthand, so “Jaws” it is!

And it’s this tossed-off title, selected at the last desperate minute ‘cause it has fewer letters, which initially drew Universal’s interest…And Stephen Spielberg’s, later. And surely most people who’ve watched the thing. It’s a good title.

With John Sturges (The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, WHOO!) balking as director, Universal turned to Dick Richards – that sounds like the sort of name an Italian gives himself when selling a spaghetti western to U.S. audiences. (Sergio Leone once called himself Bob Robertson.) No matter, Richards’ future career (who’s most recognizable efforts include Farewell, My Lovely and Death Valley) indicates the sort of boring, forgotten, lackluster product Jaws should have been.

But Dick Richards didn’t direct Jaws, as we all know. He was fired early on, because (idiotically) he thought the shark was a whale. What the?!

So now producers turn to the untested Stephen Spielberg, whose first theatrical film, The Sugarland Express, had not yet been released, chosen almost entirely due to the quality of his made-for-TV thriller Duel – a masterfully bare bones little actioner chronicling the eternal struggle between man and truck. It seems, again only in retrospect, that this was the right choice.

Much of Jaws’ quality must be attributed to Spielberg; the rest must be attributed to kismet.

Here’s the thing. When you’re making an A-list monster movie, you’ve got certain resources those B-guys didn’t have. Basically, you can show your monster. To the literal-minded, this would seem a good thing. But it’s a double-edged sword, leading to laziness, when any old Louis Leterrier can put whatever he wants up on screen at any time. (Retrospect says total special effects freedom is deadly.) But this is what was originally envisioned for Jaws, with three (eventually four) working mechanical sharks devised for all the big Sharkly Action.

Well, they didn’t work; they looked crummy; tons of reading material is available, recounting how tremendously awful the mechanical “Bruce” sharks were, leading to Jaws getting prematurely dubbed Flaws. But with this insurmountable obstacle, and filming well into doubling both its schedule and budget, it forced Spielberg into a corner. He would have to use his directorial skills! No laziness or CGI dinosaurs for him…yet. And like most artists, this seemingly-crippling disadvantage provided the possibility for true creativity to flower.

Jaws is famous for how it cuts around the shark, using (intentional) Hitchcockian flourishes (for accidental reasons) to etch out a far more nerve-jangling horror-action-thriller-blockbuster-hybrid-whatever than could possibly be hoped for. We know this stuff – the fin on the water, the distant yellow barrels, John Williams’ effectively minimalist horror score (behind only Psycho and Halloween on that front). Oh, and it forces the story to work, even when the characters and drama are really just a delivery system to get us some good Sharkly Action.

Credit the screenwriters, who had to occasionally work on the fly, dealin’ what with them uncooperative and blood-thirsty robot sharks – which once even tried to eat George Lucas! Sure, Benchley is there to transition the story, but deserving maybe the most credit is Carl Gottlieb, following Spielberg’s wishes to remove the novel’s extraneous subplots concerning extramarital affairs and corrupt Martha’s Vineyard mobsters and other such nonsense not having to do with Sharkly Action. It’s like the gigantic vagina subplot they removed from The Godfather – I’m serious. And there’s always the uncredited John Milius, unsung mastermind behind Dirty Harry, lending his touch to many of the film’s most celebrated scenes.

The cast is good too.

*************************************************************


Structurally, Jaws is an interesting beast, divided neatly into two isolated parts. When you think of Jaws, you think of either part, but neither at once. The first half is Jaws the horror movie, concerning a great white terrorizing residents of Amity Island – a body count picture, and the primary basis for most Jaws copycats. The second half is Jaws the action movie, paring things down to the three essential cast members, one boat, and that darned shark.

But we do open in horror movie land, which means we have to open on a death – following an exceedingly moody POV shot underwater. And let us never forget, quality aside, Jaws is merely a gory, knocked-off thriller. Many teens (or maybe college students) are enjoying a pot-laden beach party, which, for Chrissie Watkins (Susan Backlinie), is just a precursor for genre-dictated skinny dipping. She’s brought along an overly-drunken faux-beau, whose intoxicated inability with his own clothing allows Spielberg a calculated moment of levity leading up to the death.


Chrissie bites it, as it were, as the shark bites her. It’s loud, messy and brutal, Chrissie’s gurgled screams and rag doll treatment cutting closer to home far more than the many quick and painless decapitations that pass in more extreme genre fare today. Even a slasher-trained veteran would find this death painful, in this somehow PG-rated flick.

Oh, and we never see the shark.

Come morning, we meet new arrival to Amity Island, Sheriff Martin Brody (Roy Scheider, Spielberg’s choice for a role for which producers wanted Robert Duvall or Charlton Heston). Surprisingly artful and non-forced evidence explains how Brody, wife Ellen (producer’s wife Loraine Gary), and sons Mike and Sean have moved from New York, and Brody’s afraid of the water. The characterization, for Brody and the cast as a whole, remains subtle but unmistakable – a decent proper drama could’ve been etched from this. Plenty has been said about Jaws’ cast, and the film as a whole (by Liz Kingsley and the good folks at Jabootu), so I’ll leave most of this alone.

With all due efficiency, Brody has discovered Chrissie’s mutilated remains, and the town coroner has even pegged it as a shark attack. We ought to be well on our way to a proper man vs. shark event, no dilly-dallying, when along comes Mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) to throw a socket wrench into that idea. The 4th of July is nigh, see, tourist season in Amity, and good ol’ Vaughn and his hideous anchor suit cannot allow shark-related beach closures to jeopardize the town’s one real source of income. Giving Vaughn the benefit of the doubt, this is a legitimate argument (worsened since Vaughn’s a jerk). Much like in the original Dirty Harry, here we have an irritating genre-wide cliché appearing in its first, most legitimate form (from Harry, I’m thinking of the eternally-angry police chief). Through that danged retrospect, this is the hardest part of Jaws for future viewers to swallow whole screaming.

So those beaches are open, with tourists frolicking about as Brody sits in the corner with trepidation. Through his own fears, a series of neat visual hints, and pure editing, Spielberg employs his most pure Hitchcockian mode to suggest the inevitability of a shark attack – all this before Williams’ tell-tale score comes into play. (Bryan Singer’s TV production company also earns its title in this scene.) Really, pilfered Vertigo shot aside, I think this sequence would make a great shot-for-shot case study for those interested in film. (Editor Verna Fields truly earns her Oscar in these moments.)

But anyway, the shark attacks again – rather economically, under 20 minutes in, and in a way that’s impossible to ignore. Vaughn or no, that’s jump-starting your plot! And no matter it’s a young boy, Alex Kintner, who is the target – this is more horrifying, one, in a totally earned way…especially as Jaws uses Alex’s death as the catalyst for Brody’s actions from here on out.

Oh, and we never see the shark…well, maybe a fin.


Alex’s grieving mother issues a $3,000 bounty on the shark, sending the town into a tizzy. This problem must be dealt with before the tourists arrive in earnest! Vaughn, economically desperate, will agree to a mere 24-hour beach closure – which still earns censure from the townsfolk.


Screeeeeeeeeeeeee! Offering up his shark solution, for a hefty fee, is local fisherman Quint. Again, I’ll try to be brief with the iconic characters, but Quint’s just that – iconic. On paper, he’s a salty old seadog, with a substantial amount of “Moby-Dick’s” Captain Ahab for good measure; as played by Robert Shaw (surly among the greatest – though shortest-lived – character actors ever), Quint takes on a humanity even while he’s the counter to the film’s more realistic figures. And we won’t see him substantially again until the “action” half has kicked in – one reason that’s Jaws’ better half.

No matter. Brody is at home, shaken, reading up on sharks. Meanwhile, two yahoos have determined a purely Mensa-level scheme to bag the beast: hooking up a holiday roast to the dock, all whilst whistling an offhand John Ford reference (“Shall We Gather at the River”). Indeed, this is the opportunity for the next predictable shark attack, the dock and one yahoo getting dragged out to sea. What makes this a noteworthy scene is what happens next – Following a lengthy suspense sequence, the yahoo survives. How ‘bout that? Most post-Jaws body count flicks would never pass up on a tacked-on opportunity for death as is presented here. Thus, Jaws gives us some genuine suspense.

Oh, and we never see the shark.


The following day is when Mrs. Kintner’s scheme comes to fruit. Dozens of brainfully-neglected yahoos amass from all over central casting, seemingly with the intent of catching the shark through the random lobbing of dynamite. Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss, atoning for his horrible performance in The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz) is also here, an oceanographer and shark-o-path here at Brody’s request. He examines Chrissie’s remains, identifying the culprit as Carcharodon carcharias…great white.

Just as the yahoos present a murdered tiger shark.

This allows jerkwad Vaughn to reassert his plot-stalling ways, necessitating another public shark attack for things to get truly under way. Of greater concern, from a certain viewpoint, is Mrs. Kintner’s sudden persecution of Martin Brody for his complicity in the Great Shark Cover-Up of 1975 which led shortly to her son’s be-gobbling. Mrs. Kintner’s brief screen time is amazingly heartbreaking: “Still my boy is dead now, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

The scenes of Sharkly Action make Jaws a good movie, but scenes like these make it a great movie. Brody at home enjoys a thoroughly warm and speechless scene with his own son, aided by work from both Spielberg and Williams that is amazingly subtle – for them.

Soon Hooper is present as well, with several whole bottles of wine, allowing Brody to partake in the sauce. Thus juiced up on tasty booze, he is willing to accompany Hooper on an after-hours tiger shark autopsy. The beast’s gullet reveals no Kintner, but instead a nice sight gag – Louisiana license plates.

Then it’s off to sea, Hooper using his independently-wealthy equipment to locate a downed watercraft. Prepping with snorkel gear, Hooper makes a rare venture beneath the water’s surface (wisely meted out in this Jaws). Here he discovers one of Bruce’s teeth. He also discovers, one jump scare later, the decomposing head of Ben Gardner! (Too bad this head was a late addition by a scare-greedy Spielberg, which thus inspires later continuity dialogue errors.)


Thus convinced of the great white problem besetting this incredible Caucasian community, our sobering duo tries again to convince Vaughn. We know how this is gonna go.


So it’s time for that next attack, to finally rid Vaughn of his pigheaded anti-shark bias. The event is delayed a bit, with montages of the incoming 4th crowds. And here’s a Peter Benchley cameo as a reporter, betraying his total inability to act. Then an extended false scare involving two jackass children and their cardboard shark fin – itself no less convincing than the effort of Universal’s best special effects crew. The entire beach erupts into rampaging panic, Spielberg doing a test run for Saving Private Ryan.


But the shark ain’t at the beach – just as well, ‘cause that’d smack of repetition. Nope, we’re informed (by a surprisingly attractive hippie artist girl) that “Shark in the Pond.” What, San Jose’s playing Anaheim? No, Bruce has made his way through the estuary, making a shark beeline for Mike in his little slip (or skip, or whatever you call that kinda boat – I’m a landlubber). And here’s a rower, an adult, thus an acceptable Human McNugget, all set to get et. But this time the whole town, hundreds of tourists, et cetera, are all there to see Bruce’s afternoon feeding.

Oh, and we never see the sh- Actually, we see it…Obscured under the water for the briefest of moments.

And now, slightly over halfway through, Jaws leaves all its copycats in the, er, water, moving on to the superior action half the other killer beastie flicks never even attempt. And with the monster already well established as scary, Alien style, we can send the manliest of men off against it, Aliens style. So, whatever possibility for a tonal shift in a potential Jaws sequel is destroyed, as Jaws itself employs the same tonal shift – quite masterfully.


Most wonderfully, Quint is back!

With him are Brody and Hooper, all upon the rather inconsequential Orca for a Melville-esque shark hunt. That’s all we’ll get from here on out, and like a low budget or a malfunctioning animatronic fish, a limited setting forces Spielberg to become more interesting and energetic in his approach – this is Spielberg as we best know him, fashioning an impeccable boys’ adventure tale and truly coming into his own.

The content here initially concerns the warring factions between the men, with allegiances shifting on occasion, Quin e’er the crusty old seaman (ew!), Brody the n00b who’s due up for a triumphant character arc. But slowly and surely these men are becoming chums, and Brody chums, when –


AAAAAAAAH! I guess this boat is of insufficient size…or something to that effect.

The majority of the film over, our shark has been introduced – and without Williams’ score tipping us off early or anything! Now it’s on, as our heroes battle the 25-foot long beast with the titular mouth. A yellow barrel is affixed to the animal, the in-movie intent being to wear it down. What it does, from a filmmaking perspective, is allow the shark to remain largely off-screen, represented by the increasing mass of barrels in place of even a dorsal fin.

At nighttime, hostilities are suspended for The Greatest Character Scene in History. Things start out with Quint and Hooper raucously comparing their scars, while Brody sits out. A wonderfully tiny moment shows him holding back his own scars, possibly accrued on the NYPD – a, subtle back story. Then Brody questions Quint about the former tattoo on his arm, and all goes still…

Quint was aboard the U.S.S. Indianapolis when it sank in 1945. He and 900 other men bobbed day and night afloat in the water, awaiting a rescue that would never come. Then the sharks came, for a slow and steady feeding process, described by Quint in terms Dr. Loomis reserves for Michael Myers – “Lifeless eyes, black eyes…” The utter and complete silence of this scene makes it all the more unnerving, carried by nothing but Shaw’s performance and Williams’ slowly, almost subliminally creeping score. And Quint’s reasoning for the shark hunt is established: “I’ll never put on a lifejacket again.”

Lightening the mood, all three wail “Show Me the Way to Go Home,” when Bruce himself crashes the party in his own inimitable way – flooding the engine and crippling the Orca. Rushing out to deck, the men quickly gear themselves for conflict, as Spielberg manages to capture his first accidental shooting star moment. I swear, that thing’s real.


The following day is defined purely by action sequence, as we’ve entered the final stretch. Motors are repaired, barrels attached, motors shot again, the boat dragged – there’s plenty of Sharkly Action! Quint, in full Ahab Mode, not only pushes the Orca to the breaking point, but he destroys the craft’s only radio, forcing a showdown. “Farewell Spanish Ladies” he sings, possibly anticipating death of some sort.

Orca now marooned, and well on its way to sinking, Hooper springs into action, entering his pricey shark cage…

Okay, you know what? Jaws is a great film, and working at its fullest in the climax, everything up to now informing the action. If you haven’t seen it, honestly, watch the thing! I’ve already over-written.




*************************************************************

The final piece to the Jaws puzzle is discussing how well it did. As we’ve acknowledged Jaws’ position as the forebear for all film to come, it’s clear it must’ve been pretty significant at the time. How ‘bout “highest grossing film ever” significant? (Sure, it’s only like 96th now, but that’s inflation for ya.) Besting former B.O. champ The Exorcist, Jaws was the first film to break $100 million domestically. This is still the benchmark for a cinematic success, though it’s become less meaningful with time. Worldwide, then, Jaws made $490 million, which is nothing to sneeze at. Consider, by today’s standards, this littler killer shark flick made $1.9 billion dollars! Damn it, though, somehow that’s still behind Avatar…

Considering this success, it’s no surprise there’d be Jaws sequels. Considering its quality, it’s no surprise they’d suck. Considering its content, it’s no surprise they’d be awkward little monstrosities. And I’ll say but this for the sequels: combined, they couldn’t even halve the B.O. take of Jaws. Hi-yo!


Related posts:
• No. 2 Jaws 2 (1978)
• No. 3 Jaws 3-D (1983)
• No. 4 Jaws: The Revenge (1987)