Review by Jack Kost
Movies,
in general, are just movies – nothing more.
You
see them – you forget them.
However,
some movies are so good – you never forget them; they stay with you forever and
get better every time you watch them.
Jaws (1975) has always had
a special place in my heart.
It
was the movie that made me fall in love with movies.
During
my early teens, it was the first movie I saw on rental VHS video cassette.
When
I was fifteen, I bought a four-hour video cassette and recorded Rollerball and Jaws when they were screened on TV.
Already
a dyed in the wool movie fanatic, it felt great to have my own copies of two
movies I love, and that video cassette was like gold to me – a treasure!
Both
movies were released in 1975 – a great year for movies – and I will post a blog
on Rollerball in the future.
I
went through the usual precautions concerning prized video cassettes: broke the
small, square plastic tab on the base of the cassette, preventing accidental
erasure … affixed a label to the base of the cassette, on which I wrote ROLLERBALL & JAWS in bold,
felt-tip-pen capitals … then hoarded it away in my bedroom.
Unless
I was watching some other late-night movie on TV, then the double-feature of Rollerball and Jaws was my
late-Saturday-night-into-the-early-hours-of-Sunday-morning treat.
During
that period, settling to watch movies was something of a ceremony:
More
coals on the fire to keep the room temperature comfortable … check!
Draft-excluder
covering the gap at the bottom of the lounge door … check!
TV
angle realigned, parallel with the rug in front of the fire … check!
Seat
cushions banked with my bed pillow against the base of the couch … check!
Fresh
mug of coffee … check!
Snacks
… check!
Me
laid on rug … check!
Cushions
behind my shoulders … check!
Pillow
behind my head … check!
TV
screen perfectly positioned with my direct line of view … check!
TV
remote strategically placed to the right of my coffee mug … check!
The
ceiling light and corner lamps out; room lit only by the glowing coals and TV
screen … check!
My
German Shepherd dog stretched out asleep on the couch behind me … check!
Yep!
You read that right! I was laid on the floor; my dog was on the couch. I spoil
my pets.
Over
the years, I’ve watched both those movies less frequently, but each new viewing
has always felt like a special event and my appreciation for them has never
waned.
I’ll
focus on Jaws for this blog.
Jaws was released in the
United States on June 20, 1975.
The
plot, based on the novel by Peter Benchley, is simple: the locals in the summer
resort of Amity Island have their livelihoods – along with their lives! –
threatened when a Great White Shark makes a smorgasbord of the swimmers.
Police
Chief, Brody (Roy Scheider), Oceanographic expert, Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss),
and shark fisherman, Quint (Robert Shaw), eventually team up and set out on
Quint’s vessel, the Orca, to hunt down the shark and kill it.
There
is so much to love and admire about this movie: superb script, beautiful
cinematography, fully developed characters, suspense and humor.
I
can’t choose one particular favorite scene – I love the entire movie and can’t
find a fault with it.
From
the classic opening, starting with those marine sounds, leading into John
Williams’ now timeless and brilliant theme music:
Beach
party tragedy:
MAYOR
VAUGHN:
Martin,
it's all psychological. You yell barracuda, everybody says, "Huh?
What?" You yell shark, we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of
July.
The
moment of shock, zoom shot:
HOOPER:
This
was no boat accident!
Dinner
conversation:
MAYOR
VAUGHN:
(pointing to the
billboard as he talks to BRODY):
Brody!
Sick vandalism! That is a deliberate mutilation of a public service message.
Now, I want those little paint-happy bastards caught and hung up by their
Buster Browns!
Author,
Peter Benchley’s cameo as the news reporter:
Estuary
victim:
Working
out differences and setting terms:
Keeping
the chum line going:
BRODY:
"Slow
ahead." I can go slow ahead. Come on down here and chum some of this shit.
BRODY:
You’re
gonna need a bigger boat.
HOOPER:
You
were on the Indianapolis?
BRODY:
What
happened?
QUINT:
Japanese
submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from
the island of Tinian to Leyte. Just delivered the bomb – the Hiroshima bomb.
Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes.
Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen-footer.
You know how you know that, when you're in the water, Chief? You tell by
looking from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know, was our bomb mission
had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn't even list us
overdue for a week.
Very
first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin', so we formed ourselves into tight
groups. You know, it was kinda like old squares in the battle, like you see in
the calendar named: The Battle of Waterloo, and the idea was: shark comes to
the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes
the shark would go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away.
Sometimes
that shark he looks right into ya, right into your eyes. You know, the thing
about a shark, he's got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes. When he
comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living ... until he bites ya, and those black
eyes roll over white and then ... ah, then you hear that terrible high-pitched
screamin', the ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin' and the hollerin',
they all come in and they ... rip you to pieces.
You
know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many
sharks, maybe a thousand. I know how many men, they averaged six an hour.
On
Thursday morning, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from
Cleveland. Baseball player. Bosun’s mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached
over to wake him up. He bobbed up and down in the water just like a kinda top.
Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist.
Noon,
the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us. He swung in low and he
saw us ... he was a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper. Anyway, he saw
us and he come in low and three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and starts
to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened ... waitin' for
my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again.
So,
eleven-hundred men went into the water; three-hundred-and-sixteen men come out
and the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the
bomb.
NOTE:
Although
the story of Jaws is fiction, Quint’s
story of the USS Indianapolis is rooted in fact.
Stacy
Keach and Richard Thomas starred in a 1991 TV movie of the story: Mission of the Shark: The Saga of the U.S.S.
Indianapolis.
Jack
L. Chalker’s fictionalized novel of the event: The Devil’s Voyage, was published in 1981.
In
2016, Mario Van Peebles directed USS
Indianapolis: Men of Courage, starring Nicolas Cage, Thomas Jane, Tom
Sizemore, and James Remar. Shark
attack:
The
shooting stars in this scene were real:
BRODY:
Smile,
you son of a bitch!
For
me, Jaws remains the best of the
genre.
The
sequels to Jaws didn’t come near the magic of the original and sank (pun
intended) into the depths of the cinematic pit of movies so bad – they are
woefully BAD!
There
have been numerous other shark-themed movies, not connected to the Jaws franchise: Open Water … Shark Night … Deep Blue Sea … Red Water … Bait … The Reef
… The Shallows …
Oh
… yeah … and let’s not forget the cinematic classic that is Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus … and I
still can’t believe I actually sat through it!!!
…
but I have yet to see another shark-themed movie as exciting or entertaining as
Steven Spielberg’s 1975 original: Jaws.
If
you’re ever thinking of buying a suitable vessel for a shark fishing trip …
always opt for the bigger boat!