‘Jaws': The Prototype Summer Blockbuster Turns 50, Losing None of Its Bite
One of my formative movie memories is of being in a theater in 1975, packed with excited kids and teenagers in Newcastle, Australia, to see Jaws for the first time. It's not surprising that an audience in a city with miles of golden beaches might be especially primed to react to Steven Spielberg's ageless shark shocker.
Even so, the screams were deafening, the nervous laughter that followed each jolt of terror was contagious and the physical sensation of entire rows of seats shaking as people reflexively lifted their feet up off the floor — and 'out of the water' — during each attack was unforgettable.
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This was long before massive Imax screens, earth-rumbling sound systems and haptic motion seating made the visceral moviegoing experience a regular thing. It felt like the modern-day equivalent of French audiences ducking or even fleeing the theater as cinema pioneers the Lumière brothers sent a train hurtling toward them in 1896, urban legend or not.
Spielberg's first major hit single-handedly changed the business model for Hollywood, giving birth to the blockbuster summer event movie. I've been a sucker for shark thrillers ever since, and even after way too many viewings to count, Jaws still scares the hell out of me.
It spawned a feeding frenzy of imitators that continues to this day, aiming to tap into our primal fear of the monster from the deep. Some are effectively lean and mean, like the narratively spare Open Water in 2003, or The Shallows from 2016, which is basically Blake Lively in a bikini being circled on a rock by a great white for 90 minutes.
But nothing has ever come close to the tension that floods our veins at the sound of that immortal two-note ostinato, the signature of John Williams' suspenseful score. Or the dolly zoom on the face of Roy Scheider's aquaphobic Amity Island police chief Martin Brody as he watches from the beach while a kid on an inflatable raft turns into a fountain of blood. Or Brody scooping chum from a bucket off the back of the Orca — the boat owned by Robert Shaw's maverick shark hunter Quint — when their target rears up out of the Atlantic, razor teeth bared.
Spielberg's mastery, even at that early stage of his career, was in full bloom. Possibly the best thing that happened to him on that troubled shoot — with its soaring budget and stretched schedule — was the constant malfunctioning of the mechanical prop sharks. That forced the director to get crafty, almost inadvertently generating one of the all-time great screen examples of the power of the unseen monster to frighten the wits out of us.
Prop issues also led to Spielberg making more extensive use of footage shot by pioneering Australian underwater cinematographers Ron and Valerie Taylor, notably in a standout scene in which a shark attacks and destroys a dive cage. That sequence featuring a real great white in action prompted a rewrite that saved the life of Matt Hooper, the wise-ass oceanographer played by Richard Dreyfuss. (He was shark food in the novel and the original shooting script.)
Jaws was shot on Martha's Vineyard, just a hop, skip and jump up Cape Cod from where I spend time every summer in beautiful Provincetown. Even before reports of shark attacks in the area in recent years or the addition of warning signs on the main beaches, I always had a Chief Brody moment whenever I put a toe in the water. But it's never stopped me going in.
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The couple are also parents to four children: daughters Sasha, Mikaela and Destry and son Sawyer. Roy Scheider, who played the heroic Police Chief Martin Brody, died on Feb. 10, 2008. In addition to Jaws and Jaws 2, he acted in The French Connection (1971), All That Jazz (1979), The Rainmaker (1997) and The Punisher (2004), among other roles. He was nominated for two Academy Awards, one Golden Globe award and one BAFTA. Scheider had one daughter, Maximillia, with his ex-wife Cynthia Bebout. He went on to marry actress Brenda Siemer in 1989, and they had a son, Christian, and a daughter, Molly. In 2004, Scheider was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, but he died of a staph infection in February 2008. He was 75 years old. Robert Shaw, who played the shark hunter Quint, died on Aug. 28, 1978 — three years after Jaws premiered. Besides his leading role in Jaws, Shaw also appeared in The Sting (1973), From Russia with Love (1963), The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) and Robin and Marian (1976). He was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Henry VIII in the 1966 film, A Man for All Seasons. Shaw was a dad to 10 children before his death. He had four daughters with his ex-wife Jennifer Bourke, whom he was married to from 1952 to 1963. He later married actress Mary Ure in 1963 and adopted her son. The couple went on to welcome more children as well. Shaw later wed Virginia Jansen in 1976 and he adopted her son as well as welcoming one son during their relationship. Shaw died from a heart attack on Aug. 28, 1978. He was 51 years old at the time of his death. Lorraine Gary, who played the police chief's wife Ellen Brody, retired shortly after Jaws. She went on to act in the 1976 movie Car Wash and the Spielberg-directed 1979 film 1941. Gary retired from acting in 1979 — except for briefly reprising the role of Ellen in the 1987 film Jaws: The Revenge. She married Sidney "Sid" Sheinberg, the head of Universal Pictures, in August 1956. The couple share two sons, Jonathan J. and William David. Murray Hamilton, who played Mayor Larry Vaughn, died on Sept. 1, 1986. Hamilton, who was a stage actor before starring in Jaws, continued working with Spielberg. He acted in the sequel Jaws 2 in 1978 and worked alongside Gary and Spielberg in 1941. He was also set to star in Jaws: The Revenge, but he died before filming began. Beyond the Jaws franchise, Hamilton acted in The Way We Were (1973), The Drowning Pool (1975) and Brubaker (1980). In 1953, Hamilton married Terri DeMarco, who sang in the famed group The DeMarco Sisters. The two shared one son, David. Hamilton died of lung cancer on Sept. 1, 1986. He was 63 years old. 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