40 years ago "Jaws" became the 1st 'Summer blockbuster"

MichaelWinicki

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I was 12 and my parents took me to see it... I bet it played at this one theater ("The Palace") for 6 weeks.

It was amazing. They had a full-size Paper Mache shark in the front lobby.

The movie was simply incredible... I thought about it for days after.

Having Ben Gardner's head appear in the hole at the bottom of the boat literally made me jump out of my seat.

That movie was one of those events that makes life worth living.
 

PJTHEDOORS

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I was too young to see it (I was 5), but do remember the music from the commercials. It was being played everywhere on tv.
 

Fritsch_the_cat

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My memory of this is the row of sorority girls from a local college sitting behind us. They kicked and screamed all through the movie.

Great movie though, I've seen it I don't know how many times since and will watch it again many more times. Quint is an epic character.
 

big dog cowboy

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I remember buying this poster and putting it on my bedroom wall.

jawsoct13.jpg
 

yimyammer

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Great movie, I remember the lines around the theater and endured them twice it was so good.

A fun thing to do if you have a pool is invite a bunch of people over on a hot summer day. Then, get a bunch of inner tubes and set up a TV outside and watch the movie at night while floating in the tubes, adds to the anxiety level and is a lot of fun
 

Roadtrip635

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I saw Jaws in the theater when I was 10, it was awesome and scary at the same time. The worst part was my family went to the coast, Galveston, less than a week after I saw the movie. It took a while to go in the water, but you're not gonna keep a 10 yr old kid out of the water for long, but never did go in past waist deep. I remember seaweed or something brushing my leg a couple times and freaking out. It was easy to tell all the people that saw the movie, there were a lot of nervous looks and mini freakouts and chain freakouts. One person would jump or holler out and all the people around them would jump, it was pretty funny looking back on it now.
 

LittleBoyBlue

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I remember Spielberg and the issues they had with the mechanical shark. It didn't work more than it worked.

Great little tidbit.


1. The shark had many nicknames on set.
The 25-foot killer shark that terrorized screen audiences was simply called "Bruce" on set. Named after Spielberg's lawyer, the mechanical shark was a complete disaster, sinking on it's first voyage into the waters. The crew reportedly also referred to it as "flaws" or "the great white turd" from then on.

But some good did come from the failure. “I had no choice but to figure out how to tell the story without the shark. So I just went back to Alfred Hitchcock: ‘What would Hitchcock do in a situation like this?’ ... It’s what we don’t see which is truly frightening," Spielberg said. It's then that

***** Spielberg decided to use the shark's point-of-view


for more terrifying shots and added suspense.
 

MichaelWinicki

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Nice clips.

One thing about Jaws is that it has aged well.

Outside of the suit the mayor was wearing and the lady who's son was killed by the shark (and her fashion was "old" even back then) there isn't a lot to date the film.
 

Fritsch_the_cat

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If you have never read the novel by Peter Benchley, you should.

Had had a cameo in the movie, a reporter on the beach.
 

DallasEast

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Jaws is unquestionably one of the classic movies of all-time. It is the movie that made me fall in love with Steven Spielberg's work, even though I really liked what he did with Duel before that. I don't know if anyone could have composed a better lead acting trio of Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider for THIS movie.

However, I'm really posting to the thread as homage to John Williams. The movie is great without its music score. With it? The movie is exceptional. Practically all his compositions are pure musical magic. Here's a tiny sampling (the Jaws theme hits at 4:45):



TINY sampling. Check out his Wikipedia page for just his critically nominated and winning work.

Williams is a living legend who doesn't get nearly enough recognition in my opinion. His work elevated some of the best films into the Hollywood stratosphere.

On a slightly related note, I believe Hans Zimmer is Williams successor. Zimmer's work matches much of the same auditory emotion for his movies as Williams. I hope his career is as bright as Williams. It would make for some great movie enjoyment for audiences in the years to come.
 

MichaelWinicki

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However, I'm really posting to the thread as homage to John Williams. The movie is great without its music score. With it? The movie is exceptional. Practically all his compositions are pure musical magic.

Agree on props for John Williams.

I purchased the soundtrack and it was magical.
 

Tabascocat

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If Jaws was never made, people wouldn't be afraid of the ocean today. It created an aura of some sort. I don't know the word, transcendent maybe.

An all-time classic :cool:
 

LittleBoyBlue

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Remember Quint's story..... (Foreshadowing how he would die, sharks missed him the first time)


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, you know that when you're in the water, chief? You tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. Well, we didn't know. 'Cause our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent, huh. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, chief. The sharks come cruisin'. So we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know it's... kinda like 'ol squares in battle like uh, you see on a calendar, like the battle of Waterloo. And the idea was, the shark goes to the nearest man and then he'd start poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark would go away. Sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark, he's got... lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'. Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white. And then, ah then you hear that terrible high pitch screamin' and the ocean turns red and spite of all the poundin' and the hollerin' they all come in and rip you to pieces. Y'know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men! I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand! I don't know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday mornin' chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player, Bosun's Mate. I thought he was asleep, reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up and down in the water, just like a kinda top. Up ended. 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's a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper, anyway he saw us and come in low. And three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and start 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 in the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.
 

MichaelWinicki

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If Jaws was never made, people wouldn't be afraid of the ocean today. It created an aura of some sort. I don't know the word, transcendent maybe.

An all-time classic :cool:

Oh no question.

Before that... sharks were sharks.

"Jaws" turned sharks into menacing man-eating hunters, which still lingers to this day.

Great White Shark would have a much different connotation today if it weren't for "Jaws".

And how "Jaws" affected everyone that even thought about going in the water that summer... You almost had to have lived through it.
 
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