Movie Review – Jaws (1975)
Dahhhhh, duhhhhhh.
Dahhhhh, duhhhhhh.
Dahhhhh, duhhhhhh.
We all know that infamous movie theme.
It’s the movie that scared beach visitors out of the water. It’s the movie that continues to spark terror and fascination towards sharks. It’s the movie that helped catapult the directing career of Steven Spielberg, and helped make composer John Williams into the legend he became.
Yes, folks, it’s 1975′s hit movie, Jaws. Directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw, Jaws is the legendary film that puts the fictional island town of Amity in the clutches of a massive (and hungry) great white shark. Just how far will the new but dedicated police chief go to protect the citizens of Amity and stop the killings in the water?
Jaws (1975) – (c) Universal Pictures
Jaws begins with an innocent teenage beach party in June of 1975. Two teenagers escape from their friends for a little privacy. The girl talks her friend into going skinny dipping. She hits the water first, but as we see, an innocent swim in the ocean turns into absolute horror. Something grabs the girl and yanks her underwater. She manages to escape to a buoy, but the unknown creature grabs her again, this time dragging her underwater for good.
Jaws (1975) – (c) Universal Pictures
The following morning we’re introduced to Amity Island’s newest chief of police, Martin Brody (Roy Scheider). He’s new to the island and is a bit afraid of the water himself. Brody is advised of the missing girl, Chrissie, from the party. It doesn’t take long before Brody’s deputy, Hendricks, discovers the missing girl’s body on the beach. The town’s medical examiner claims that the girl was killed by a shark. When Brody tries to close Amity’s beaches because of the attack, the mayor of Amity, Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton), refuses to allow him to do it. Closing the beaches for the upcoming Fourth of July celebration would ruin Amity’s economy for the year. Brody reluctantly goes along with the mayor, and the medical examiner changes his report to claim that Chrissie was killed in a boating accident.
Jaws (1975) – (c) Universal Pictures
Amity’s beaches remain open, and aside from a few people, the town’s residents are unaware of the danger lurking in the water. A day or two later several people are enjoying time on a beach. Chief Brody is with them, trying to relax on the sand with his wife, Ellen (Lorraine Gary). There’s an ominous sign as a man is playing fetch with his dog in the water, and the dog suddenly goes missing. Just when all seems calm, the shark attacks again, killing a young boy playing in the water. The water turns red as the boy is dragged underwater. His inflatable raft washes on shore, bitten in several spots and stained red with the boy’s blood.
Jaws (1975) – (c) Universal Pictures
Shocked and outraged, the people of Amity hold a town hall meeting and discuss ways of killing the shark. There’s a $3,000 bounty offered to whomever catches and kills the shark that killed the boy on the beach. Local shark hunter Quint (Robert Shaw) offers his services to catch and kill the shark, but he wants significantly more money than what’s offered in the bounty. The residents of Amity refuse his offer and many local fishermen take to the water to kill the shark themselves.
Jaws (1975) – (c) Universal Pictures
Marine biologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) arrives to answer Chief Brody’s call for extra help. He re-examines Chrissie’s body and states that she was clearly killed by not just a shark, but a really big one. Meanwhile, some of the fishermen catch and kill a large tiger shark, a man-eating shark not common in those waters. The mayor and townsfolk believe that the threat has ended, but Hooper is unsure. He explains that the bite radius is different than Chrissie’s wounds, and they need to cut open the shark to verify if any body parts are still inside its stomach.
Jaws (1975) – (c) Universal Pictures
After having dinner with Martin and Ellen Brody, Hooper and Brody go down to the pier and cut open the tiger shark. Sure enough, there aren’t any body parts remaining in the shark’s slow digestive system. The shark that killed Chrissie and the boy on the beach is still out there somewhere. Brody joins Hooper and the two of them take a night patrol in Hooper’s yacht. They discover a damaged boat belonging to a local fishermen, and a massive shark tooth is still lodged in the boat’s hull. Hooper accidentally drops the shark tooth when the decaying body of the dead fisherman startles him.
Jaws (1975) – (c) Universal Pictures
Chief Brody and Hooper take their evidence and try to convince Mayor Vaughn to close Amity’s beaches. The mayor refuses, stating that he’s not going to close the beaches on the Fourth of July without any hard evidence of a shark threat. The town’s beaches remain open, and the tourists flock to Amity Island.
Jaws (1975) – (c) Universal Pictures
Things are busy but calm for the Fourth of July at Amity. The tourists are there, there’s a heavy security presence in the water, but nobody is going swimming. People stay out of the water until Mayor Vaughn convinces a family to go swimming. Once the family enters the water many fellow beach goers join them, splashing around and having fun. Chaos strikes when two boys play a shark prank and scare the swimmers.
Jaws (1975) – (c) Universal Pictures
After the prankster boys are exposed, the real shark is spotted in a quiet section of water called the pond — the same spot where Brody’s son and his friends are sailing. The shark knocks over a row boat and kills a man. Brody’s son is also knocked into the water, and he goes into shock when witnessing the shark attack. Chief Brody pulls his son from the water and takes him to the hospital where he recovers. While at the hospital, Chief Brody forces Mayor Vaughn to sign a contract allowing the town to hire Quint and kill this shark.
Jaws (1975) – (c) Universal Pictures
Chief Brody and Matt Hooper visit Quint and hire him. Chief Brody forces himself to be a part of Quint’s team as part of the town’s contract. Matt Hooper has to prove his basic seamanship skills before Quint reluctantly takes him onboard his ship, the Orca. The Orca is loaded with provisions along with Hooper’s special equipment, and the three men sail into the Atlantic Ocean to hunt and kill the fearsome shark.
Jaws (1975) – (c) Universal Pictures
Chief Brody is unhappily tossing blood and meat in the water to bait the shark when it suddenly appears, startling him. He tells Quint that, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” Hooper gets a few photos of the shark before he and Quint shoot it with a small harpoon. They successfully hit the shark and make it pull a flotation barrel, trying to tire the shark. But the shark is too strong and it bites the rope, freeing itself from the barrel.
Jaws (1975) – (c) Universal Pictures
The three men retire for the evening and spend some time drinking. Things take a serious note when Brody asks Quint about a particular tattoo on his arm. Quint reveals that it’s from when he served on the U.S.S. Indianapolis. He explains how the ship was on a secret mission to deliver an atomic bomb near the end of World War 2. The ship was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine and many of the crew were stranded in the water. Since the ship was on a secret mission, no distress call was made when the ship was attacked. Quint and his fellow men had to survive for several days as sharks repeatedly attacked his fellow sailors. After telling his story, the shark reappears and damages Orca‘s hull.
Jaws (1975) – (c) Universal Pictures
The shark appears again the next day. This time Quint and Hooper successfully attach two barrels to the shark, but the shark pulls them underwater, eluding them again. When Chief Brody tries to make a radio call to the Coast Guard, Quint attacks him with a baseball bat and destroys the radio. The barrels appear, and Brody and Hooper attach the rope to the stern of the Orca. The shark (still attached to the ropes) reappears and drags the boat backwards, flooding the boat and sending water down to the engine. Quint takes the helm and goes full speed forward, trying to drag the shark to shore, but the engine ultimately stalls and fails. Quint’s obsession with killing the shark has disabled his own ship.
Jaws (1975) – (c) Universal Pictures
In a last ditch effort to kill the shark, the men assemble Hooper’s steel cage. He puts on a wet suit and tries to jab the shark in the mouth with a massive hypodermic needle, an attempt to poison the beast. The shark attacks the cage and Hooper drops his spear. Hooper is able to swim away and escape as the shark gets entangled in his cage.
Jaws (1975) – (c) Universal Pictures
Disheartened at the assumed loss of Hooper, Quint and Brody ponder their situation as the shark attacks their ship again. The massive great white shark jumps onto the stern of the Orca, destroying the rear and flooding the ship. Quint slides down and is eaten by the shark.
Jaws (1975) – (c) Universal Pictures
When the shark returns for him, Brody shoves a cylinder of compressed air into its mouth. Chief Brody grabs his rifle and climbs the mast of the Orca. As the ship slowly slips beneath the waves, Brody fires a few shots at the approaching shark. He hits the tank of compressed air and it explodes, killing the shark. After the explosion Hooper surfaces, and he and Brody use some floating debris to help swim back to shore.
And that concludes Jaws.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Thirty-seven years after its release, and Jaws is still a fantastic movie. The story is solid, the music is powerful, and the shark itself is just plain awesome. Is it considered proper to watch this movie today and be rooting for the shark?
When you see this Hitchcock-style version of Jaws, it makes you wonder how the original version of Jaws would have looked had the mechanical shark worked properly during the film’s production.
It’s well known that the mechanical version of the shark, nicknamed ‘Bruce’, constantly broke and caused budget and production problems. Because of the constantly malfunctioning shark, Spielberg used music and camera tricks to “hide” the shark and merely suggest its presence in the water, letting the audience use its imagination (and fear) to create the shark. If the mechanical shark worked properly from the start of production, I wonder just how different the final version of Jaws would have looked.
That’ll probably never be known. This version of Jaws was a huge hit in the theaters, and the rest is history. Three more Jaws movies were made in this series, and the success of Jaws has spawned many imitators. To this day, no other shark movie has come closing to matching the original Jaws.
The success of Jaws helped inspire Universal Studios Florida to make the popular film into a thrilling boat ride. After entering the Amity section of the park, guests boarded a boat for a guided boat tour around Amity Island. Things seem to be fine until a tour boat is discovered to be sinking by the lighthouse, and there aren’t any survivors. After that follows a series of shark attacks, even one inside of a boat house, and then the climatic battle with the great white shark. The ride’s ending was more in line with Jaws 2 as the shark was electrocuted after biting into a massive power cable. Jaws and the Amity section of Universal Studios Florida closed for good on January 2, 2012.
Jaws (1975) – movie trailer
While Jaws may no longer scare and terrify today’s viewers as it did back in the day, this is still a great movie. Sit back, relax, and enjoy this tale of a killer shark. And next time you visit a beach, remember not to stray too far into the surf. You never know what’s swimming just beneath you . . .
Quint – “This shark, swallow you whole.”
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Hooper – “Well, this is not a boat accident! And it wasn’t any propeller; and it wasn’t any coral reef; and it wasn’t Jack the Ripper! It was a shark.”
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Mayor Vaughn – “I don’t think either of one you are familiar with our problems.”
Hooper – “I think that I am familiar with the fact that you are going to ignore this particular problem until it swims up and bites you on the ass!”
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Chief Brody – “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”