Jaws (1975) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error | Adventure , Drama , Thriller | 20 June 1975 (USA) A giant great white shark arrives on the shores of a New England beach resort and wreaks havoc with bloody attacks on swimmers, until a part-time sheriff teams up with a marine biologist and an old seafarer to hunt the monster down. Director: From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC a list of 30 titles created 25 Jun 2011 a list of 22 titles created 21 Sep 2013 a list of 25 titles created 30 Oct 2014 a list of 32 titles created 15 Mar 2015 a list of 21 titles created 6 months ago Search for " Jaws " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.

You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Won 3 Oscars. Another 10 wins & 16 nominations. See more awards » Videos During a preview tour, a theme park suffers a major power breakdown that allows its cloned dinosaur exhibits to run amok. Director: Steven Spielberg 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X A seemingly indestructible humanoid cyborg is sent from 2029 to 1984 to assassinate a waitress, whose unborn son will lead humanity in a war against the machines, while a soldier from that war is sent to protect her at all costs. Director: James Cameron Police chief Brody must protect the citizens of Amity after a second monstrous shark begins terrorizing the waters. Director: Jeannot Szwarc A weatherman finds himself inexplicably living the same day over and over again. Director: Harold Ramis Rocky Balboa, a small-time boxer, gets a supremely rare chance to fight heavy-weight champion Apollo Creed in a bout in which he strives to go the distance for his self-respect. Director: John G.

Avildsen Archaeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones is hired by the U.S. government to find the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis. Director: Steven Spielberg When Dr. Henry Jones Sr. suddenly goes missing while pursuing the Holy Grail, eminent archaeologist Indiana Jones must follow in his father's footsteps and stop the Nazis. Director: Steven Spielberg Marty McFly, a 17-year-old high school student, is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean invented by his close friend, the maverick scientist Doc Brown. Director: Robert Zemeckis John McClane, officer of the NYPD, tries to save his wife Holly Gennaro and several others that were taken hostage by German terrorist Hans Gruber during a Christmas party at the Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles. Director: John McTiernan 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.5/10 X After a space merchant vessel perceives an unknown transmission as distress call, their landing on the source moon finds one of the crew attacked by a mysterious lifeform.

Continuing their journey back to Earth with the attacked crew having recovered and the critter deceased, they soon realize that its life cycle has merely begun. Director: Ridley Scott A cyborg, identical to the one who failed to kill Sarah Connor, must now protect her teenage son, John Connor, from a more advanced cyborg. Director: James Cameron Directors: Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez, and 1 more credit » Stars: Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Bruce Willis Edit Storyline It's a hot summer on Amity Island, a small community whose main business is its beaches. When new Sheriff Martin Brody discovers the remains of a shark attack victim, his first inclination is to close the beaches to swimmers. This doesn't sit well with Mayor Larry Vaughn and several of the local businessmen. Brody backs down to his regret as that weekend a young boy is killed by the predator. The dead boy's mother puts out a bounty on the shark and Amity is soon swamped with amateur hunters and fisherman hoping to cash in on the reward. A local fisherman with much experience hunting sharks, Quint, offers to hunt down the creature for a hefty fee.

Soon Quint, Brody and Matt Hooper from the Oceanographic Institute are at sea hunting the Great White shark. As Brody succinctly surmises after their first encounter with the creature, they're going to need a bigger boat. Written by garykmcd Jaws - 1975 - Trailer - YouTube Jaws - 1975 - Trailer Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Loading... Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on Dec 13, 2012 Jaws is a 1975 American horror/thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. The prototypical summer blockbuster, its release is regarded as a watershed moment in motion picture history. In the story, a giant man-eating great white shark attacks beachgoers on Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, prompting the local police chief to hunt it with the help of a marine biologist and a professional shark hunter.

The film stars Roy Scheider as police chief Martin Brody, Richard Dreyfuss as oceanographer Matt Hooper, Robert Shaw as shark hunter Quint, Murray Hamilton as the mayor of Amity Island, and Lorraine Gary as Brody's wife, Ellen. The screenplay is credited to both Benchley, who wrote the first drafts, and actor-writer Carl Gottlieb, who rewrote the script during principal photography. Shot mostly on location on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, the film had a troubled production, going over budget and past schedule. As the art department's mechanical sharks suffered many malfunctions, Spielberg decided to mostly suggest the animal's presence, employing an ominous, minimalistic theme created by composer John Williams to indicate the shark's impending appearances. Spielberg and others have compared this suggestive approach to that of classic thriller director Alfred Hitchcock. Universal Pictures gave the film what was then an exceptionally wide release for a major studio picture, over 450 screens, accompanied by an extensive marketing campaign with a heavy emphasis on television spots and tie-in merchandise.

Category Watch "Jaws" (1975) Free Online Duration: 124 min Jaws is a 1975 American thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley 's novel of the same name. The prototypical summer blockbuster, its release is regarded as a watershed moment in motion picture history. In the story, a giant man-eating great white shark attacks... Show More Jaws is a 1975 American thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley 's novel of the same name. The prototypical summer blockbuster, its release is regarded as a watershed moment in motion picture history. In the story, a giant man-eating great white shark attacks beachgoers on Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, prompting the local police chief to hunt it with the help of a marine biologist and a professional shark hunter. The film stars Roy Scheider as police chief Martin Brody , Richard Dreyfuss as oceanographer Matt Hooper , Robert Shaw as shark hunter Quint , Murray Hamilton as the mayor of Amity Island, and Lorraine Gary as Brody's wife, Ellen.

The screenplay is credited to both Benchley, who wrote the first drafts, and actor-writer Carl Gottlieb , who rewrote the script during principal photography. Shot mostly on location on Martha's Vineyard , Massachusetts, the film had a troubled production, going over budget and past schedule. Show Less Jaws 2 (1978) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error Police chief Brody must protect the citizens of Amity after a second monstrous shark begins terrorizing the waters.

Director: From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC a list of 45 titles created 07 Apr 2012 a list of 35 titles created 27 Jun 2012 a list of 23 titles created 25 Aug 2013 a list of 33 titles created 17 Dec 2014 a list of 38 titles created 1 month ago Search for " Jaws 2 " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. The sons of police chief Brody must protect civilians at a SeaWorld theme park after a 35-foot shark becomes trapped in the park with them. Director: Joe Alves Chief Brody's widow believes that her family is deliberately being targeted by another shark in search of revenge.

Director: Joseph Sargent 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X A giant great white shark arrives on the shores of a New England beach resort and wreaks havoc with bloody attacks on swimmers, until a part-time sheriff teams up with a marine biologist and an old seafarer to hunt the monster down. Director: Steven Spielberg Searching for a cure to Alzheimer's disease a group of scientists on an isolated research facility become the bait as a trio of intelligent sharks fight back. Director: Renny Harlin The beaches of the Baltic Sea are terrorized by a shark. The military manage to destroy it, but the shark returns in spectral form. Directors: Sergey A., Ivan Yakovidish Stars: Sergey A., Krolik Black, Eldar Bogunov Three people attempt to stop a gigantic crocodile, who is terrorizing residents in Black Lake, Maine. Director: Steve Miner While Sheriff Brackett and Dr. Loomis hunt for Michael Myers, a traumatized Laurie is rushed to hospital, and the serial killer is not far behind her.

Director: Rick Rosenthal Edit Storyline Four years after the events of the original "Jaws", the town of Amity suddenly experiences series of mysterious boating accidents and disappearances. Chief of Police, Martin Brody, fears that another shark is out there, but he is ignored by the townsfolk. Unfortunately, he's right. There is another Great White in the sea. And it wants revenge. Written by darkmage7280 Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water... See more » Genres: 16 June 1978 (USA) See more » Also Known As: Did You Know? Trivia Although the first film was commended for leaving the shark to the imagination until two thirds of the way through, Jeannot Szwarc felt that they should show it as much as possible because the dramatic "first image of it coming out of the water" in the first film could never be repeated. Szwarc believed that the reduction of the first film's Hitchcockian suspense was inevitable because the audience already knew what the shark looked like from the first film.

See more » Goofs In the very beginning, as Brody travels to the party, an aerial view of the truck reveals the shadow of the camera perched on the railing of the bridge, along with several crew men. See more » Quotes Martin Brody : That boat's gonna take you in. Where the hell are they? Hendricks : About ten degrees off your starboard bow. You take... Martin Brody : Don't give me that shit, point! (Toronto, Ontario) – See all my reviews It's strange, I wonder how this film would have been received if it was directed by Spielberg instead of an unknown. Because this film is about as intense as they come. Granted, it lacks in the personal relationships and that is what made Jaws such the classic that it is. We all know that there is no way a sequel to Jaws could ever live up to what we experienced with Jaws, but this film is about as scary as they come. Here, I must admit that the characters take a back seat to the shark. But is that necessarily wrong?

We have already seen the shark in the first one so the mystery is gone, so now the only thing to do is make sure the audience is scared out of their minds. And that I can assure you is done with just as much perfection and attention to detail as the original. Take for example the opening scene where two divers are looking in the Orca ( Quint's sunken ship from the first film ). They are playfully taking pictures in front of the sunken ship. Then suddenly, a shot from behind them, and the ominous music. You know they are going to be eaten, but the scene is done with so much tension and perfect pacing that you are scared all over again. And when the shark finally does strike, we experience that primal emotion all over again. The story is a fairly simple one but affective at the same time. Brody ( Roy Scheider ) is convinced there is another shark in the waters off Amity and he is having a hard time convincing the town idiots that he is right. But this time his two sons are a little older and they will be involved in the final confrontation with the shark. There is one other scene that I wanted to point out and that is a scene where a picture is being developed.

Brody is given a camera of the missing divers from the beginning. The developer then tells him that the pictures are about to be processed. As he stands in the red room, waiting for the pictures to develop, he knows. He has that feeling. Something is going to show up on the picture. And sure enough we see it. The mouth. The black, doll-like lifeless eye appears in the corner of the frame and Brody knows. He knows what it is. This is such a powerful scene in the film and it is directed with such skill that it looks like it could have been directed by Spielberg. I think Jaws 2 is a great film and it is just as scary if not a little scarier than the first, but what it lacks is that it's characters don't have time to develop. We don't care as much about these ones as we did about Hooper and Brody and Quint to some degree. But that is a small detail, because the film does it's job and that is to scare us. Look for one more scene where Tina and her boyfriend are boating by themselves. It will stay with you for quite some time. Maybe if this was Spielberg's film he would have done something different.

But the one thing he couldn't do is to make it more of a frightening experience than it is. So that is a compliment to Szwarc, I just wonder what happened to him. Because he has a vision and a style that is very reminiscent to Spielberg's original. If you haven't seen this by now, treat yourself to the first one and then watch this one right after. Especially to all the young people that are on the IMDb, Jaws is a classic piece of film making and I have said that it is the best film ever made, and it is. But if you want to be scared, Jaws 2 will fulfill that need just as well as the first and better than any film that has come out in the 90's. And finally, has there ever been a better tagline in the history of motion pictures? Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...... Brilliant. 61 of 80 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you?

Yes Jaws Movie Review & Film Summary (1975) | Roger Ebert "You're going to need a bigger boat." Advertisement So the police chief famously informs the shark hunter, right after the first brief appearance of the man-eater in "Jaws." It's not simply a splendid line of dialogue, it's an example of Steven Spielberg's strategy all through the film, where the shark is more talked about than seen, and seen more in terms of its actions than in the flesh. There is a story that when producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown first approached Spielberg with an offer to direct the film of Peter Benchley's best seller, he said he would do it on one condition: that the shark not be seen for the first hour. Viewing the movie's 25th anniversary DVD, I was surprised to realize how little the shark is seen at all. In keeping the Great White offscreen, Spielberg was employing a strategy used by Alfred Hitchcock throughout his career. "A bomb is under the table, and it explodes: That is surprise," said Hitchcock. "The bomb is under the table but it does not explode: That is suspense." Spielberg leaves the shark under the table for most of the movie.

And many of its manifestations in the later part of the film are at second hand: We don't see the shark but the results of his actions. The payoff is one of the most effective thrillers ever made. The movie takes place over the Fourth of July weekend on Amity Island, a tourist resort that feeds off the dollars of its visitors. A famous opening sequence establishes the presence of a man-eating shark in the coastal waters; a girl goes swimming by moonlight and is dragged under, screaming. All evidence points to a shark, but Mayor Vaughn ( Murray Hamilton ) doesn't want to scare away tourists, and orders Brody ( Roy Scheider ), the police chief, to keep the beaches open. "If people can't swim here, they'll be glad to swim in the beaches of Cape Cod, the Hamptons, Long Island," the mayor tells Brody, who spits back: "That doesn't mean we have to serve them up a smorgasbord." But the mayor strides on the beach wearing a sport coat and tie, encouraging people to go into the water. They do, with predictable results.

Advertisement A town meeting is interrupted by the second of the film's central characters, the rough-edged, narrow-eyed Quint ( Robert Shaw ). He gets attention by scraping his fingernails down a blackboard that displays a drawing of a shark and offers his services as a bounty hunter: "You all know me. Know how I make a living." Soon after, Brody sits at home paging through books on sharks, a device that allows Spielberg to establish the killer in our minds as we look at page after page of fearsome teeth, cold little eyes and victims with chunks taken out of their bodies. (One of the photos shows a shark with a diver's air tank in its mouth, possibly suggesting where Brody gets his bright idea for killing the creature.) The third key character is Hooper ( Richard Dreyfuss ), an oceanographer, brought in as an adviser, and useful to the movie because he can voice dramatic information. ("What we're dealing with here is a perfect engine. An eating machine.") Brody is convinced the beaches must be closed and the shark killed; the mayor stalls, and then after the shark makes the TV news, a $3,000 bounty is offered, and Amity is crawling with reckless fortune hunters.

It's here that Spielberg uses one of his most inventive visuals for suggesting the shark. Three or four men gather on a wooden pier, hoping to catch the shark. One has stolen his wife's beef roast to use as bait. They put a fearsome hook through the roast, fasten the chain to the pier, and toss in the bait. The shark simply pulls the end of the pier loose from its moorings and drags it out to sea. Effective, but even more chilling is the next shot, in which we see the floating pier turn around and move back toward shore. Advertisement Floating objects are used all through the movie to suggest the invisible shark. After Brody, Quint and Hooper put out to sea in Quint's leaky boat, they fire harpoons into the shark. The harpoons are roped to floating yellow kegs, designed to tire the shark with their lift and drag. In the crucial action sequences at the end, we are often looking at kegs and not at a shark, but the premise is so well established that the shark is there. The screenplay, by Spielberg, Benchley and Carl Gottlieb , with contributions by Howard Sackler and a crucial speech by Shaw, does not twist itself into parables.

The characters all have straightforward motivations. A little dialogue goes a long way. Individual lines stand out for hard-edged terseness: "I'm not gonna stand here and see that thing cut open and see that little Kintner boy spill out all over the dock." Advertisement "I pulled a tooth the size of a shot glass out of the wrecked hull of a boat out there, and it was the tooth of a Great White." "The thing about a shark, he's got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes. When he comes after you, he doesn't seem to be living until he bites you, and those black eyes roll over white. . . ." After all of the shark-establishing and curtain-raising scenes, the heart of the movie is in the long passage at sea, where Hooper and Brody (who is afraid of the water) join Quint on his boat. Brody is right, they need a bigger boat.

Quint's boat is terrifyingly inadequate, leaky, with an engine that produces clouds of black smoke, a bridge that seems designed to topple a crew member overboard, and a harpooning platform jutting out from the bow so that a man standing on it looks like an appetizer on a kebab stick. Advertisement The best scene in the movie is the nighttime scene in the galley, where the men drink apricot brandy and Quint and Hooper compare scars. Finally Quint launches into a moody monologue, telling the World War II story of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. He was one of its crew members. Of the 1,100 men who went overboard, he says, sharks ate all but 316 before rescue arrived: "They averaged six an hour." When the shark does appear for its closeups, it is quite satisfactorily terrifying, and most audiences are too startled to ask why the shark seems prepared to inconvenience itself so greatly, at one point even attempting to eat the boat. The shark has been so thoroughly established, through dialogue and quasi-documentary material, that its actual presence is enhanced in our imaginations by all we've seen and heard.

Spielberg's first big hit contained elements he repeated in many of his movies. A night sea hunt for the shark provides an early example of his favorite visual hallmark, a beam of light made visible by fog. He would continue to devote close attention to characters, instead of hurrying past them to the special effects, as so many 1990s f/x directors did. In "Jaws" and subsequently, he prefers mood to emotional bludgeoning, and one of the remarkable things about the picture is its relatively muted tone. The familiar musical theme by John Williams is not a shrieker, but low and insinuating. It's often heard during point-of-view shots, at water level and below, that are another way Spielberg suggests the shark without showing it. The cinematography, by Bill Butler , is at pains to tell the story in the midst of middle-class America; if Spielberg's favorite location would become the suburbs, "Jaws" shows suburbanites on vacation. Advertisement "Jaws" was released in 1975, quickly becoming the highest-grossing picture made up to that time, and forever wresting the summer releasing season away from B movies and exploitation pictures.

The major Hollywood studios, which had avoided summer, now identified it as the prime releasing season, and "Jaws" inspired hundreds of summer thrillers and f/x pictures. For Spielberg, the movie was the launching pad for the most extraordinary directorial career in modern movie history. Before "Jaws," he was known as the gifted young director of films such as "Duel" (1971) and " The Sugarland Express " (1974), After "Jaws," " Close Encounters of the Third Kind " (1977) and " Raiders of the Lost Ark " (1981), he was the king. Popular Blog Posts ‎Jaws 2 (1978) directed by Jeannot Szwarc • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd Review by YI JIAN ★★★½ I'm actually okay with the Jaws franchise turning into some kind of slasher/monster genre hybrid with Bruce's mother(?) appearing out of nowhere to avenge his son's death! But, you know, since the film showed signs that it's heading towards campiness, I think they could've went all out in terrorizing these helpless teens.

"Brucette" here just isn't threatening enough because at times she's slow and clumsy which resulted in a surprisingly little amount of body count. I mean, let's go for the helicopter instead of those readily served human nuggets just begging to be eaten, right? Why the fuck not? I guess it's excusable, transitioning from a Spielberg epic to b-horror can be a slow process after all. Hope the mayor finally learns his lesson in the third fucking film, or is there going to be a mayor at all? ‎Jaws (1975) directed by Steven Spielberg • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd 26 Imagine standing in line. A warm day in June, basking in the glory of a sunny afternoon, with your stomach full after a late lunch (probably pizza) and your excitement reaching a pinnacle that is consistent with every other teenager and 20 year old in line. The trailer and the posters were enough, as everyone is out and ready to see this movie. It's about a giant shark, and It's directed by a guy that hasn't done much.

You go in, buy a massive bucket of salty and dangerously buttery popcorn, and you race to find the best seat that you can manage. And then the movie starts. It's the equivalent of stepping into a hurricane with a cheap umbrella,… 26 The perfect blockbuster. I saw this video somewhere of a guy petting a great white shark. While watching it I was filled with utter dread. Sharks scare me. I guess it's the teeth. I assume you can imagine what spurred me on to rewatch Spielberg's masterpiece. And a masterpiece it is. Now, before I continue, I hate people who use the ‘omg the shark looks sooo fake' argument to criticize this film. Yes, the shark shows its age and had the shark looked fake at the time it was created as well it would be a fair criticism. Looking at the rest of the film, I'd say it's easy to step over its dated look.

Pacing is paramount in most… 10 Widely regarded by critics & viewers alike as one of the greatest, scariest & most influential films of all time, Jaws is Steven Spielberg's breakthrough feature that didn't only catapult his career to great heights but also ended up establishing the modern Hollywood business model by becoming the first blockbuster in cinema history. Set in a fictional Amity Island, the story concerns a town sheriff, a marine scientist & a local fisherman who team up together to hunt down a gigantic great white shark which has been terrorizing their small island community but once they set out into the wide ocean, they only end up discovering themselves as the ones being hunted by the great white. Produced on low budget, the masterful creativity… 16 Whilst Jaws undoubtedly changed cinema forever, and signalled the birth of the blockbuster, there is a big ‘what if’ hanging over the film: what if Bruce, the affectionately named mechanical shark, had worked as originally intended? Would the film still have been the runaway smash and would it still stand as one of the true greats of American cinema?

Of course it is a question that cannot be answered but whilst the technical gremlins were a big headache for Spielberg and his crew at the time he must now see its limitations as a blessing. It is partly because the shark could not be used as intended that the film was so effective and why it has aged so brilliantly… Mindhole Blowers: 20 Facts About Jaws That Might Make You Want to Scream, "Shaaark!" By Cindy Davis | Seriously Random Lists | June 2, 2015 | Comments ( ) In 1975, after a long labor and great pains, Steven Spielberg birthed this first summer blockbuster and the highest grossing film of all time (at that time). With a great cast portraying memorable characters, a picturesque location and a believable (and much maligned) monstrous foe to root against, Jaws left audiences alternately terrified and ecstatic.

The film still holds up today and in a testament to Spielberg’s efforts, I still jump every single time that head rolls out… If you’re a fan, the documentary attached to the 30th Anniversary edition DVD is well worth a watch, with commentary by Spielberg, Benchley, Scheider, Dreyfuss, David Brown, Richard Zanuck, Carl Gottlieb, John Williams and many crew members. 1. For years, author Peter Benchley thought about writing a book about sharks that attacked people and what would happen if the sharks wouldn’t go away. In 1964, he read a story about a fisherman who caught a “4550 pound great white shark off the shores of Long Island, and thought, what if one of those wouldn’t go away?” In 1971, a publisher told Benchley it would make an interesting story and so he wrote the novel. 2.

The sport fisherman Benchley had read about was Frank Mundus, a “colorful character” who in fact, harpooned that white shark (estimated weight—no scale—of 4500 pounds) and still holds the record (with Donnie Braddick) for the largest fish caught by rod and reel: A 3,427 pound great white shark. Though Benchley denied it, many sources (including Jaws screenplay writer and actor Carl Gottlieb) say the character of Quint was based on Mundus (who died in 2008). Braddick and Mundus: 3. Benchley said he thought over novel titles for months, right up until 20 minutes before production. He thought most of them were too pretentious: The Stillness in the Water, A Silence in the Deep, Leviathan Rising, Jaws of Death, Jaws of Leviathan. In the last meeting with his editor, Benchley said the only word they could agree upon was “Jaws;” it was short and would fit on a cover jacket so they went with it.

They didn’t think its prospects were good for a first novel about a fish—it was sent out to several literary houses and a book of the month club. After the club and Reader’s Digest both made it a selection, Bantam bought Jaws and then it immediately went out to movie auctions. Universal bought the rights for $150,000, which was for Benchley, “the moon.” 4. Producers David Brown and Richard Zanuck (A Few Good Men, Driving Miss Daisy, The Sugarland Express) loved the book, though Brown said they never thought about how they would get a shark to jump up on a boat and eat a man. He thought if they had read the novel twice, they might have had more time to think about the technical issues and not made the film. When the film was first sold, a director (unidentified on the commentary, listed as Dick Richards on Wikipedia) who always wanted to make a film about a “whale” was attached—but things didn’t work out and Richards was dropped. 5.

Steven Spielberg said he first became aware of Jaws when he saw the name on a large stack of papers; he didn’t know what the title meant and thought it might refer to a dentist. The book was not yet in the national consciousness. He read it over a weekend and thinking back, said he remembers Jaws as a time in his life of great courage and stupidity. His first thoughts were: “Wow, this is like a movie I just made about a truck and a driver (Duel). Jaws and Duel both have four letters, they’re both about a leviathan going after man.” He felt it was kind of a sequel to Duel and was very interested because of that. 6. Zanuck and Brown wanted to get rid of the novel’s backstories, just do a straight-line adventure story. Benchley did the script adaptation and handed it over to Spielberg, who didn’t know exactly what he wanted to do with the movie—so he wrote an entire script himself (a few of the scenes survived). The director said writing the script was an exercise for him to decide what he wanted Jaws to be.

Brown and Zanuck next suggested Spielberg go to Howard Sackler, a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright who wrote The Great White Hope and was also an expert scuba diver (as is Benchley). Very familiar with sharks and underwater activity, Sackler didn’t want any credit for, but committed to doing the film. The Screen Actor’s Guild contract was about to expire at the end of the year (1973) and the studio decreed that no movie would be started that could not be finished by June 30th of that year, because they didn’t want to be stuck (with an unfinished film). Spielberg, Zanuck and Brown met to discuss how quickly Jaws could be made and Spielberg said he didn’t have a finished script yet. Finally, Brown suggested Carl Gottlieb (“The Odd Couple, The Bob Newhart Show,” The Jerk). Gottlieb was first hired as actor and he helped with improv, along with contributing to the script. Gottlieb predicted they’d be doing for the water what Psycho had done for showers and commented that to this day, he hears about how people wouldn’t go swimming anymore after seeing Jaws. 7.

Spielberg had written a different introduction for Quint, in which Quint was at a movie theater watching Moby Dick, laughing because it was so silly with the mechanical whale. Quint continued to laugh so hard and so maliciously that people got up and walked out of the theater, until finally Quint was completely alone in the theater, with his laughter echoing out into the streets. The scene was squashed because the director was unable to secure the rights to Moby Dick, relating (very carefully) that “Gregory Peck felt it wasn’t his proudest work; he didn’t want it to be made fun of or even to be in the film at all.” 8. Zanuck thought they should have footage of real sharks, so Australian experts Ron and Valerie Taylor (“Shark Hunters,” Blue Water, White Death) were hired. (Peter Gimble, who directed the documentary Blue Water, White Death was asked to do camera work, but because he insisted he direct the film, was not involved.) Since the sharks the Taylors worked with were only 14 feet, Spielberg looked for a little person to be used in their footage to scale the shark.

The director hired Carl Rizzo, who came in to meet Spielberg with blood dripping from his head — Rizzo explained he’d just had an accident at the studio’s front gate. Spielberg thought Rizzo brave and felt he must really have wanted the job to come in that condition. The Taylors also used two small dummies in their footage of sharks attacking an underwater cage, but said that “Carl looked better and could move around.” Ron Taylor said they’d been working for about a week, trying to get a shark attacking the cage, but that sharks don’t normally do that. Finally one day, a shark came over and got its nose stuck in a bridle; sharks go crazy when they are trapped. So the shark went berserk and they used that footage (with an empty cage), because it looked as if the shark was attacking the cage. Taylor said it was the scariest thing he’d ever seen. 9. Roy Scheider was hired after Spielberg had begun searching for an unknown actor; the studio wanted “a name.” At a party, Scheider’s agent introduced him to Spielberg as the director was describing the story to someone. Scheider said, “That’s a great story, how about me?” 10.

Scheider improvised the film’s most famous line: “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” 11. Jon Voight, Timothy Bottoms and Jeff Bridges were considered for the part of Hooper; they each turned it down “for one reason or other.” Richard Dreyfuss was cast because Spielberg loved American Graffiti (the actor was suggested by George Lucas). Dreyfuss said he loved the exciting story as told by Spielberg, but when asked if he wanted to make the film he said he’d rather watch it because, “it’s going to be a bitch to shoot.” A few months later, Dreyfuss went to the premiere of his own film and saw himself as a leading man for the first time; he didn’t like his performance, saying “I figured I’d better get a job really soon.” He called Spielberg and asked to do the film. 12. Spielberg’s first choice to play Quint was Lee Marvin, but Marvin said he liked to fish for real, not in a movie. His second choice was Sterling Hayden (Spielberg was a fan of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb), but Hayden couldn’t do it.

Producer David Brown suggested Shaw (liked him in The Sting). Spielberg screened A Man for All Seasons and From Russia with Love and decided on Shaw, saying he wished he had thought of the actor himself. Dreyfuss said Shaw was “the most extraordinarily, unnecessarily competitive person he’d ever met.” 13. Production Designer Joe Alves was sent to scout possible locations; they’d thought of Jamaica because of the water clarity. Martha’s Vineyard had never been photographed for a feature film before because of strict rules. But it was the only place they could go on the east coast 12 miles out to sea, there was a sandy bottom 30 feet below where they could put sharks and cameras down—no matter what direction cameras turned, land couldn’t be seen. Spielberg felt it was important the audience would feel there was no shore to run back to. The only set built was Quint’s shack; they had to promise to put everything back exactly. The billboard had to be put up, shot and then taken down that day. Nothing could alter the landscape or harmony of the island. 14.

Stunt woman Susan Backlinie (first victim) wasn’t an actress and Spielberg was nervous hiring her, but ended up loving her.The director thought it would be much scarier not to see the shark at first—if it had come up out of the water, right away, Jaws “would have been monster movie.” Spielberg himself did the first jerk-down. Backlinie had a cable attached near her stomach, “he’d pull and she’d throw her head back.” According to Backlinie, they wanted to put her on an electric wench, but she didn’t want that, so they used man power. Cables ran from each side of her, to men back on beach. Several men pulled back and forth and she’d throw her arms to make it look more violent than it was. Sound re-recording (done back at the studio) had the stunt woman leaning back over a baby bassinet while Spielberg poured water over her head, as she screamed to get the appropriate sounds. For the victim’s hand found in the sand, Spielberg bought a fake arm which he said was too shiny and plastic looking. He instead had a person buried in the sand with her arm sticking up and put little crabs around it. 15.

Spielberg said that had he met local, Craig Kingsbury (Ben Gardner) before hiring Shaw, he might have hired him to play Quint. The director called Kingsbury “the purest form of Quint” and “a drunk who drove cows around town and ad libbed his own lines.” Quint’s “Not like going down the pond chasin’ bluegills and tommycods” line came from Kingsbury. Meanwhile, Ben’s famous head popping out scene was highly coordinated by Spielberg for maximum scare. The director played with the timing and tested the scene with preview audiences and crew, choosing the version with the biggest reaction. 16. With little idea as to how to create a huge, mechanical shark, Joe Alves was thrilled to find retired Special Effects man, Bob Mattey, who had done the giant squid for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Mattey was very enthusiastic that they could make the creature instead of using miniatures. They decidef upon a 25 foot model because they felt it would be both formidable and credible. Alves borrowed a real set of shark jaws from Steinhart Aquarium and got the proportions for the model shark, “Bruce” (named after Spielberg’s lawyer).

A team of experts (plastics, electronics, hydraulics, etc.) was assembled and the Taylors were brought in to comment and advise on the fake shark’s movement. They created several shark components and a full shark (Spielberg called the full model “The Great White Turd” and the effects team “Special Defects”), which on its first test run in the water immediately sank to the ocean floor. Richard Dreyfuss joked about constantly hearing “The shark is not working” over handheld radios everyone carried. Because of all the issues with the shark, shooting went way over schedule and budget, with Spielberg unable to say when the film would be finished; “Show Me the Way to Go Home” would bring tears to crew-members’ eyes. The crew did get to shore every Sunday, but Spielberg never went because he was afraid he wouldn’t come back. 17. Spielberg related a story about a big event being held, with a buffet for all the cast and crew and tons of wonderful food and desserts. Roy Scheider began a food fight by throwing mashed potatoes and gravy at Spielberg and “…it turned into a bit of a Three Stooges brawl.

The help serving dinner came out and became hysterical and it was a tremendous blowing off of steam.” Then they all — covered in food — jumped into a pool. 18. Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss were out on a boat with a sound man when some sort of malfunction caused the boat to leak and start sinking. While the boat driver was trying to get back to shore before they sank, Spielberg sent out another boat, telling people, “Get the actors off the boat!” Sound man John Carter held up a sign reading “Fuck the actors, save the sound man!” A camera onboard got wet, but the film inside was recovered and usable. 19. It was Robert Shaw’s idea to take the cap off his tooth when Quint and Hooper compare scars. According to Spielberg, Shaw also rewrote part of Spielberg’s favorite scene, the Indianapolis speech (conceived by Howard Sackler and written by two scriptwriters). Dreyfuss said that as an actor one often has to feign interest in the story another actor is telling, but that Shaw’s tale was “one of the most riveting things he’d ever seen or heard.” 20.

When Spielberg first heard Academy Award winning composer “Johnny” Williams (Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Schindler’s List, Empire of the Sun) play the Jaws music (on a piano), the director thought it was a joke—it was too simple. He asked Williams to play it again and then again, and “suddenly it was right.” Jaws won the Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score and is ranked sixth on the American Film Institute’s 100 Years of Film Scores. Spielberg and Bruce: Cindy Davis still suffers moments of panic when swimming in the ocean. Jaws (1975) Pages: ( 1 ) ( 2 ) ( 3 ) Background Jaws (1975) is a masterful, visceral and realistic science-fiction suspense/horror-disaster film that taps into the most primal of human fears - what unseen creature lurks below the dark surface of the water beyond the beach?

The tagline for the tensely-paced film, "Don't go in the water," kept a lot of shark-hysterical ocean-swimmers and 1975 summer beachgoers wary (similar to the effect that Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) had on shower-taking). The screenplay, mostly written by young, 27 year-old director Spielberg himself and Carl Gottlieb, was provided in part by Peter Benchley who wrote a trashy action novel by the same name (but originally titled A Stillness in the Water) about the fictional New England coastal town of Amity, Long Island - a summer resort that is terrorized by a menacing Great White Shark (known as the genus/species Carcharodon carcharias).

Both Benchley's best-selling book (released in the winter of 1973-74) and Spielberg's film borrowed from various sources: Herman Melville's 1851 Moby Dick, about a search for a monstrous sea creature (a great white whale) by a determined Captain Ahab Ibsen's 1882 classic play An Enemy of the People the exploits of diver Peter Gimbel's shark expedition recounted in the documentary film Blue Water, White Death (1971) Peter Matthiessen's 1971 non-fiction book Blue Meridian: The Search for the Great White Shark two great 50s horror films: The Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954) and The Monster That Challenged the World (1957) a real-life incident on the New Jersey shore in the summer of 1916 that claimed five lives over the course of two weeks Benchley's next water-related book that was brought to the screen as another hit was The Deep (1977), with a reappearance by Robert Shaw and mostly remembered for Jacqueline Bisset's scuba-diving in a wet, revealing white T-shirt.

The three major characters who ultimately confront the film's major character - the shark (similar to the whale search in various Moby Dick sagas), include: the town's principled police Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) [Charlton Heston was considered] a bespectacled, bearded marine biologist Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) [Jeff Bridges, Timothy Bottoms and Jan-Michael Vincent were other possible candidates] a grizzly, salty fisherman and WWII veteran named Quint (Robert Shaw), over-the-top and obsessed (as Captain Ahab was) to hunt and kill the great white, from a boat named Orca (named after the black and white predatory 'killer whale' - the shark's sole enemy besides man); [both Lee Marvin and Sterling Hayden were considered for the role of Quint at one time] The unheeding mayor (Murray Hamilton), a devious and dishonest authority figure who covers up the dangers of the underwater enemy in the community and restricts the local police chief, resonated with audiences in the mid-70s following the Watergate era and the earlier failure of the US military effort in Vietnam.

This was Steven Spielberg's second-directed feature film (following his poorly-received The Sugarland Express (1974)) with Goldie Hawn, but it was more similar in theme to his earlier Duel (1971) - a 73-minute ABC made-for-TV movie (and released theatrically in 1983) about a relentless, sinister and face-less driver in a demon gas tanker-truck in pursuit of a salesman's (Dennis Weaver) rented car. The same technique of delaying a glimpse of the dangerous force was employed in this film - a full view of the shark is not provided until over an hour into the film (although there are a few brief glimpses). From four Academy Award nominations, it won three Oscars: Best Sound, Best Original Score (composer John Williams, his first Oscar of many awards in the category), and Best Film Editing (Verna Fields, her final editing assignment before her death in 1982). Its Best Picture nomination went unrewarded.

[That year, freshman director Spielberg was the only director of a Best Picture nominee that didn't receive a Best Director nomination.] This was Spielberg's and Williams' second collaboration together, following their work on The Sugarland Express (1974), and they would go on to collaborate on Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) - among others. Spielberg's film was a huge summer box-office blockbuster in the mid-1970s, although the filming suffered technical problems (the film was dubbed "Flaws" by the crew), costly delays in the schedule on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts where the set was located (the on-location shoot escalated from 55 days to 159 days), and difficulties with malfunctioning, hydraulically-operated mechanical sharks (one was nicknamed 'Bruce' after the name of Spielberg's lawyer) after they were placed in the salt-water. Hollywood realized that it could increase its profits by advertising this new release on television and promoted the film with a massive, revolutionary TV marketing campaign (of $700,000) for the film.

The film was also booked into almost 500 theatres for its opening weekend - a record! The film's impact caused its celebration on the cover of Time Magazine (June 23, 1975). With a modest film budget of about $12 million, Jaws was the highest grossing film up to that time (unbroken until the release of George Lucas' Star Wars (1977) ), and earned its 27 year-old director a place in Hollywood. It grossed $438 million in eleven weeks, and was also the first film to top the $100 million record in box-office rentals (cruising past previous pace-setters Gone With the Wind (1939) and The Sound of Music (1965) ). Its tremendous success spurred Hollywood studios to aggressively look for further blockbusting, 'big-event' films with expensive ad campaigns, and the film industry did so - with Star Wars (1977) , Grease (1978), and Superman (1978), while overlooking or neglecting smaller films.

Repeated attempts were made to duplicate the original film's success in three mostly-weak sequels, although there were two Oscar-winning actors in these inferior sequels: Lou Gossett, and Michael Caine: Sequels Jaws 2 (1978) Jeannot Szwarc (a replacement for original director John Hancock) Four years later, on Amity Island; Roy Scheider - the only major returning star; also with Murray Hamilton (the mayor) and Lorraine Gary (Brody's wife) Jaws 3-D (1983) (aka Jaws III) Joe Alves Originally released as 3-D; set in Florida at Sea World Park; with Dennis Quaid as one of the sons of Chief Brody, Bess Armstrong, Lea Thompson, and Louis Gossett, Jr.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987) Joseph Sargent Again set on Amity Island - and in the Bahamas; with Lorraine Gary as Brody's widow; also with Mario Van Peebles, Michael Caine, and Karen Young There were other exploitative imitators, knock-offs, copy-cats, and rip-off 'terror in the water' films, including Mako: The Jaws of Death (1976), Tintorera...Bloody Waters (1977), Orca (1977), Tentacles (1977), Joe Dante's Piranha (1978), Killer Fish (1979), Crocodile (1979), Anaconda (1997), the Peter Benchley-scripted NBC mini-series The Beast (1999), Lake Placid (1999), the effectively scary Deep Blue Sea (1999) [with a number of 'in-joke' homages that paid honor to the original, as well as a memorable shark chomping attack on Samuel L.

Jackson], and the chillingly-dramatic Open Water (2003) (a cross between Jaws and Dead Calm (1989)), based on a true story of two divers stranded in open waters. It also inspired spoofs and parodies, including the opening of Airplane! (1980) in which a jet's rear tail (like a shark fin) sliced through the clouds, and an oft-played skit on Saturday Night Live in which a shark disguised itself as a pizza and candy-gram delivery person to enter an apartment. It was also parodied or referenced in Top Secret! (1984), Clerks (1994), Swingers (1996), and The Simpsons TV show - among others. The Story The ominous, well-known, 'shark theme' - the two-note (E and F) 'da-dum' cello and bass chords of John Williams' moody, driving musical score play under the opening credits, followed by a subjective camera view of an underwater creature swimming along. The opening scene, shot day-for-night, is marvelously visual and terrifying. It depicts a blonde girl skinny-dipping and her brutal, unexpected murder.

It is the most remembered, gripping scene in the film, and prominently displayed on the film's poster in distinctly Freudian terms (showing the ventral view of the shark's gigantic, pointed head, positioned vertically in a phallic position, with a dark mouth filled with voracious, jagged teeth). The scene begins with teenagers partying one night on the beach, and sitting around a bonfire. One of the teenage partygoers, a blonde named Christine "Chrissie" Watkins (Susan Backlinie) leaves the group and runs toward the water, announcing teasingly that she is going swimming. Followed by a drunk male admirer who is eager for an intimate swim and casual sex, their run takes them along a run-down sand-dune fence - that in silhouette resembles skeletal bones or vertebrae - of a large fish. She strips off items of clothing one-by-one as she runs further down the beach before plunging in naked. Her silhouetted image splashes at the surface, first viewed in a low-angle shot from a distance far underwater (threatening an X-rating), and then from closer range. Her drunken teenage companion passes out on the shore.

A metal buoy's bell on the surface of the water 'tings' at various intervals. In what may be retribution for teen immorality, her nude body is suddenly pulled under, and then dragged helplessly (pulled this way and then that way) on the surface by the unseen shark underneath, as she screams: "God help me!" For a brief moment, she desperately grabs the buoy and rings it for help (sounding a death knell), but is then attacked and submerged for the last time in a horrifying sequence. The water surface is again still and deathly quiet. The next morning, after a dissolve into a view of the ocean's sunlit surface, stalwart Police Chief Martin Brady's (Roy Scheider, who had received an Oscar nomination for his role as Gene Hackman's sidekick in the Best Picture-winning The French Connection (1971) ) black silhouette covers half the screen. He is groggy after awakening in his New England coastal home.

A few facts about Brody are economically communicated - he is married with children, the house was purchased in the fall and now it's summer, and Brody's blonde wife Ellen (Lorraine Gary) makes fun of his out-of-town New York accent in their transplanted New England location: "in Amity, you say 'ya-a-d." [not 'yar-r-d.'] An outsider to the town, former New York cop Brody receives a phone call from his deputy. He asks: "What do they usually do, wash up or float or what?" He promises to join an investigation in about twenty minutes. It is just at the start of the peak summer tourist season, and he and his family are new to Amity Island, having moved there from New York City. Their beachside house is surrounded by a strangely-inadequate white picket-fence with gaping holes and unusually high sections.

In his yellow truck, he passes a billboard advertising the favorite holiday destination: "AMITY ISLAND Welcomes You, 50th Annual Regatta, July 4-10." [Amity is an unusual and ironic name for a town that is being besieged by a man-eating giant shark.] The teenage boy who followed Chrissie to the water's edge has reported a possible drowning. The camera tracks Brody and the boy as they walk along the sand toward the body. However, Brody's Deputy Officer Hendricks (Jeffrey Kramer) has ruled out the possibility of drowning - he has found the remains of Chrissie's body and her severed hand, washed up on the sand dunes. The sight of the attack on the local girl nearly makes Brody sick. In his office, the troubled chief is bothered by a report from his assistant - it's another problem with fences: "Now we got a bunch of calls about that karate school. It seems that the 9 year-olds from the school have been 'karate-ing' the picket fences." He hastily types up a police report on the suspected shark attack, dated July 2nd, revealing his flustered, rushed state.

He has mistyped (or misspelled) the entry for "REMOVED TO" - "CORNERS OFFICE." The date of death is the night of July 1st, and the possible cause of death is "SHARK ATTACK." He is summoned by phone by the medical inspector, and as he leaves his office, he asks Hendricks: "Where do we keep the 'BEACH CLOSED' signs?" He is bluntly told that Amity Island doesn't have such signs: "We never had any." Brody marches to the local hardware store - along more white picket fences - to buy materials to make BEACH CLOSED signs. Along the way, an old man points out fence vandalism by the young kids: "Look what the kids did to my fence!" In the store, he purchases paint, brushes, signboards, and unpainted picket fence stakes. Hendricks drives up and alerts him to a potential problem: "...there's a bunch of Boy Scouts out in April Bay doing their mile swim for their Merit Badges. I couldn't call 'em in.

They're no phones out there." Brody switches places with his Deputy, assigning him the job of making signs: "BEACHES CLOSED, NO SWIMMING, by order of the Amity P.D." The Chief of Police decides to close the area's beaches immediately - fencing off natural open areas will prove to be a considerable challenge. While attempting to get the Boy Scouts out of the water, Brody is confronted by the mayor and town's fathers in the confined space of one of Amity's ferries, suggesting the island's isolation and dependence on beach-going summer tourists for its livelihood and survival. Amity's slimy mayor, Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton), comically wearing a gray sportcoat decorated with white anchors, tells Brody that he can't close the beaches on his own authority. Technically, he must have a civic ordinance or a resolution by a Board of Selectmen. Vaughn is concerned about the impact closing the island's beaches will have on the businesses in the exclusive town: Vaughn: We're really a little anxious that you're, ah, you're rushing into something serious here. It's your first summer, you know. Brody: What does that mean?

Vaughn: I'm only trying to say that Amity is a summer town. We need summer dollars. If people can't swim here, they'll be glad to swim in the beaches of Cape Cod, the Hamptons, Long Island. Brody: That doesn't mean we have to serve them up a smorgasbord. Mayor's Assistant: We've never had that kind of trouble in these waters. The medical examiner tells Brody that the police report must be amended - he must retract his earlier judgment about the cause of death - it is now only a boating accident. (He has been pressured by the town's fathers because publicity about a shark attack would be harmful to the approaching tourist season.) After ordering a coverup, the avaricious, sleazy mayor orders Brody to keep the beaches open: I don't think you appreciate the gut reaction people have to these things...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.

Along the beach waterline, crowds of people enjoy the long Independence Day holiday, including Brody and his own family - in the first of two beach scenes in the film. Sunbathers lie on the packed beach. It is a typically American scene - an obese female bather enters the water in a brightly colored swimsuit and sunhat. A transistor radio plays music on the soundtrack. A young boy named Alex Kintner (Jeffrey Voorhees) is permitted to go out on a raft for "just ten more minutes" by his mother (Lee Fierro) - she wears a shapeless yellow sun hat. A worried and suspicious Chief Brody sits in the sand, wearing a navy blue T-shirt. He nervously scans the shoreline. Uptight as he sits in front of a red and white striped bathing tent, he watches while hundreds of swimmers sunbathe on the beach and frolic in the water. He hears his nearby wife, wearing a deathly-black bathing suit, speaking to a black-haired, sunbathing friend-resident (later identified as a motel owner) about their lack of territorial status on Amity Island - as outsiders uprooted from New York: Ellen: I just want to know one simple thing.

When do I get to become an islander? Friend/Motel Owner: Ellen, never. Never. You're not born here, you're not an islander. That's it. A young boy throws a stick for fetching by his black dog - the animal splashes and swims with a stick in its mouth (a Hitchcockian foreshadowing of another use of jaws). A young couple share a tight embrace in the water. Just beyond most of the swimmers, Alex floats on a bright yellow rubber raft, and the fat woman floats on her back without the aid of a raft. The camera plays peek-a-boo with Brody - as he looks out at the water's horizon and passers-by block his view as he struggles to be watchful. A few false alarms are sighted, effectively and expertly building viewer expectations, tension and suspense. An elderly swimmer named Harry, whose grayish-colored bathing cap is mistaken for a shark fin, swims up behind the floating woman. As the husband of the resident-islander kneels in front of him and complains about parking problems in town, Brody cranes his eyes above the man's massive shoulder to maintain an unobstructed view.

The young couple's horseplay and screaming (as the boy playfully lifts his girlfriend onto his shoulders) fool the "uptight" police chief into thinking the shark is attacking. He sits back in relief, as Harry - with the ugly bathing cap - sits down in front of him and needles him about his reluctance to get wet (and water phobia): Harry: It's cold. We know all about you, Chief. You don't go in the water at all, do you? Brody: That's some bad hat, Harry. Kids splash and scream in the foreground of the water, while Alex floats further out. Brody's wife encourages him to relax - and supportively gives him a back and neck massage. The film builds more suspense in the next remarkable sequence of quick-edited, brilliant cuts: the dog-owner makes plaintive calls for his dog Pippet but only the stick floats on the surface of the water; the familiar score is repeated; gyrating, wiggling leg movements are photographed from underwater; another underwater view shows Alex's legs vulnerably kicking off the back of his raft. There is a momentary view of a giant fin slicing through the water.

A strange shape surfaces beneath Alex's raft, grabbing him and overturning the raft. A vacationer on the beach remarks: "Did you see that?" Blood gushes from Alex's body like from a fire hydrant or fountain. The boy screams and then is dragged underwater - his yells turn to bubbling gurgles. Around the raft, the water becomes red - Alex is the great white's second victim. Brody's worst fears have become a reality - a subjective smash-zoom (or push-pull) shot (similar to the mission tower camera work in Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958) ) zeroes in on his shocked, recoiling face as he reacts to the harrowing attack he has just witnessed. Literally, his chair moves toward the camera while the background surroundings move backwards. He jumps up to his feet from his place on the beach, yelling at the water's edge: "Everybody out!" Terrified parents run into the water, pulling their children out as fast as possible. Alex's mother frantically calls over and over again for her boy: "Alex! Alex!" - only his rubber raft, swirling around in blood-tinged water, washes up on the shore at her feet.

The yellow raft has a gaping hole bitten out of it. The next day, a REWARD sign is posted on a bulletin board in a corridor where townspeople talk about the crisis. Mrs. Kintner has put up a bounty, advertising in the town's paper and other out-of-town papers all over New England [the date on the reward sign is inconsistent with Brody's police report about Chrissie's death]: A $3,000.00 Bounty To The Man Or Men Who Catch And Kill The Shark That Killed Alex M. Kintner On Sunday Jun 29th on the Amity Town Beach. People in town are still wary of drawing conclusions: "We don't even know if there's a shark around here," argues the female motel owner. Brody worries that the bounty-offer may become a "contest." Brody feels responsible for the town's public safety. A meeting among the town's elders is assembled in a crowded Amity City schoolroom (dubbed the "council's chambers" by the mayor) at the end of the corridor, to talk about closing the beaches of the picturesque resort town.

The room has a long, semi-circular desk at the front of the room, and a blank blackboard stands behind rows of chairs at the back. When the meeting is convened, Chief Brody announces current plans regarding the beaches: Brody: We're gonna put on the summer, the extra summer deputies as soon as possible. And then we're gonna try and use shark spotters on the beach. Motel Owner: Are we going to close the beaches? Brody (after a long pause): Yes, we are. (There is loud grumbling in the audience.) We're also planning to bring in some experts from the Oceanographic Institute on the mainland. Although Brody hasn't agreed to it and protests ("I didn't agree to that"), the mayor clarifies that the beach closure will only be for 24 hours: "Only 24 hours." Brody is left helpless, emasculated, and speechless in front of the meeting. Suddenly, master fisherman Quint (Robert Shaw), an eccentric, grizzled shark-hunter makes a dramatic entrance by silencing the commotion of the meeting. [His name conjurs up his legendary predecessor - Captain Ahab.

In Latin, Quint means fifth or five -- consequentially, he eventually becomes the great shark's fifth and final human victim, after: (1) Chrissie Watkins, (2) Alex Kintner, (3) Ben Gardner, (4) Michael's sailing teacher - the guy in the pond, and (5) Quint.] The colorful old sea salt with a brogue-accent scrapes his fingernails - on a disembodied arm - irritatingly across the blackboard (with a drawn/doodled outline of a Great White Shark with a human being in its tooth-rimmed mouth) at the back of the audience to get everybody's attention. As the camera slowly pans toward him while he munches on a salty cracker, the foul-mouthed charterboat captain proposes to rid the town of the menacing, deadly shark - for $10,000: You all know me. You know how I earn a livin'. I'll catch this bird for ya, but it ain't gonna be easy. Bad fish! Not like goin' down to the pond chasing bluegills or tommycats. This shark will swallow you whole. Shakin'. Tenderizin'. Down you go.

Now we got to do it quick. That'll bring back the tourists and it'll put all your businesses on a payin' basis. But it's not gonna be pleasant. I value my neck a lot more than three thousand bucks, Chief. I'll find him for three, but I'll catch him and kill him for ten. You've got to make up your minds. Gonna stay alive and ante up? Or want to play it cheap, be on welfare the whole winter. I don't want no volunteers. I don't want no mates. There's too many captains on this island. $10,000 dollars for me by myself. For that, you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing. The old salt is told by the mayor that the matter will be considered: "We'll, uh, we'll take it under advisement." Abruptly, "No Swimming, Hazardous Area, BEACH CLOSED" signs (by order of the Amity P.D.) are staked and pounded into the ground. The film provides background on shark behavior and real shark attacks, as Brody studies up on sharks and their predatory behavior. He reads, studies and peruses picture books with colorful pictures of gigantic sharks.

One of the illustrations shows how the shark's lateral sensory system serves as a vibration detector, alerting the shark to erratic impulses from a fish in distress. As his wife sits down behind him while he is engrossed in the book, Brody jumps from shock and alarm - symbolic of the tension that is beginning to enter their lives, but she reacts with a giggle and tells him: "Oh, you scared me." He tells Ellen what he has learned about the mysterious beasts of the deep: People don't even know how old sharks are, I mean, if they live two - three thousand years...They don't know. Functioning as the voice of reason and common-sense, she advises him to put the book away and again relax with her ("Wanna get drunk and fool around?"). She also complains when her husband needlessly orders their children in from the boat at the dock, but then changes her mind when she sees proof in his book that sharks can attack boats: Ellen: Martin, it's his birthday tomorrow. Martin: I don't want him on the ocean. Ellen: He's not on the ocean. He is in a boat. He's not gonna go in the water.

I don't think he'll ever go in the water again after what happened yesterday...(She glances into a shark book with an illustration of a shark biting the side of a rowboat.) Michael! Did you hear your father? Out of the water now! NOW! (Startled by the abrupt about-face, Brody turns toward his wife with a look of incredulity.) Two old local fishermen (a few of the many amateur shark hunters who have gravitated to Amity Island), one named Charlie (Robert Chambers) decide to capture the shark and collect the reward. They toss out ("Come and get it") and float raw bait (a "holiday roast") out into the water, attached by a chain (and a floating inner tube as a surface bobber) to the short pier they are sitting on. The exciting, humorous, and nail-biting sequence is inter-cut with gruesome, colorful photographs of shark's jaws, razor-sharp teeth and human victims - more pages that Brody leafs through at his desk. The pages of the book are reflected in Brody's glasses, projecting his thoughts on the horror.

Out on the water, the shark seizes the bait and takes it out to sea, pulling the men into the water and taking half of the pier as well. The terror of the scene is magnified by the fact that the shark is unseen. One of the old men manages to scramble onto the remaining portion of the pier, but his partner, Charlie is in the water, frantically swimming back to safety. The section of the pier that is floating out to sea turns around and begins chasing the swimmer as he struggles to get back onto the slippery pier. Both of the men barely escape with their lives.

Question: Who directed the movie "Jaws"?
Answer: Steven Spielberg