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 Jaws (1975) 2.35 : 1 See more » Sound Mix: Mono (Westrex Recording System) | Dolby Digital (Dolby 5.1) | DTS (DTS 5.1) | Dolby Surround 7.1 (DTS HD Master Audio) Certification: Argentina:18 (original rating) | Argentina:13 (re-rating) | Australia:M | Brazil:14 | Canada:14A (Canadian Home Video rating) | Canada:PG (Manitoba) | Canada:R (Nova Scotia) (original rating) | Canada:AA (Ontario) | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) (re-rating) (1995) | Chile:TE+7 (re-release) | Denmark:15 | Finland:K-16 | France:12 | Germany:16 | Hong Kong:IIB | Iceland:16 | India:U (re-rating) (1993) | India:A (original rating) (1975) | Ireland:12A | Ireland:15 (original DVD rating) | Ireland:12

 (DVD re-rating) (2012) | Israel:PG | Italy:T | Japan:PG-12 | Netherlands:16 (TV rating) | Netherlands:14 (orginal rating) (1975) | New Zealand:M | Norway:16 (original rating) | Norway:15 (video rating) | Peru:14 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:PG | Singapore:PG13 (re-rating) | South Korea:15 (TV rating) (2015) | South Korea:12 (DVD rating) (2000) | South Korea:18 (VHS rating) (1978) | South Korea:All (theatrical rating) (1978) | Spain:T | Sweden:15 | Taiwan:GP | UK:A (original rating) | UK:PG (tv rating) | UK:12A (theatrical re-release) (2012) | UK:PG (video rating) (1987) (1993) (2000) | USA:PG (Certificate #24175) | USA:TV-PG (LS

V) (TV rating) | USA:TV-14 (TV rating) | West Germany:16 Filming Locations: Author: TacoBilly from North Hollywood, CA This is the movie that started it all.

I'm not talking about the Hollywood blockbuster, or the insane madness that sent thousands of misunderstood Great Whites to their deaths, I'm talking about the beginning of my interest in movies. This is the movie that did it. I couldn't tell you how old I was when I first saw it, but I do remember this is the movie I made my parents rent time and time again when we went to the video store. This is the movie that drove my parents and some of my friends nuts while I watched it day after day after day when my mom gave it to me for Christmas. This is the movie that made me want to turn a real interest in the movies from just a hobby and into a career. For that, I owe Spielberg, Benchley, Scheider, Shaw, Dreyfuss, Williams, Fields and everyone else a sincere and heart-felt thank you. I own this movie on every format in which it is available. I love it that much. I've probably seen it between 200 and 300 times. I guess you can say it is an obsession. A sick obsession. The plot, the pacing, the editing, the score, the acting, and, oh yes, the shark. Who cares that is fake?

By the time we finally get to see it, do we care? Truly, a more suspenseful movie was never made. Several come close, but none quite reaches the primal level the JAWS does. No other film so effectively taps into our fear of the unknown, and then gives it a riveting score to boot. No other movie grips us so strongly with heart stopping suspense that we find ourselves nearly falling off our seats. And no other movie leaves us feeling so spent and wasted after a viewing. And the reason for all the fear, suspense and emotional withdrawal is not top-notch special effects. It was the mid-70's. You can barely apply top -notch to anything of that era. The reason the movie does all that to us is that it is a great story. It is filled with real people, who have real jobs, and who have real fears. And who must now confront a real shark. Can you think of anything more terrifying that getting on a rickety, leaky boat to kill a 25-foot shark when you already have a paralyzing fear of the water? I can't. And Martin Brody sure can't.

And so, no matter what ranking JAWS may get on AFI's list of the 100 greatest movies, or TV Guides list of the top 50 movies, or any list for that matter, JAWS will always come in number one on mine. Steven, Peter, Roy, Robert, Richard, John, and Verna -- thank you. Not for just giving me a sense of direction in my life, not for just making me want to be a screenwriter, but also for making a movie that still thrills me as much now when I watch it as when it did when I saw it for the very first time. Was the above review useful to you?

Jaws (1975) – Directed by Steven Spielberg Jaws (1975) – Directed by Steven Spielberg From Peter Benchley’s Novel, With Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss August 17 2012 Categorized Under: Movie Reviews No Commented You are here: Home » Movie Reviews » Jaws (1975) – Directed by Steven Spielberg Jaws (1975) Directed by: Steven Spielberg Starring: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Carl Gottlieb, Jeffrey Kramer, Susan Backlinie, Jonathan Filley, Ted Grossman, Chris Rebello, Jay Mello, Lee Fierro, Jeffrey Voorhees, Craig Kingsbury (out of 4) Hey, can you guys give me a lift to the harbor? Jaws heralds the age of the blockbuster. In 1975, Universal enacted a plan that had never really been put to the test before. For three nights leading up to the film’s release in June of that year, they showed 30 second advertising spots on prime time network television (an expensive marketing strategy).

In addition, Jaws would get a wide theater release, another relatively new strategy (in the old days, movie releases would be in limited areas at first, then moving into bigger cities like a wave). Believe it or not, at one time the summer season was not even considered the prime season to release big films. This all changed with Jaws, which would go on to gross over $200 million dollars on $12 million dollar budget. Since then, Hollywood typically makes about half its revenue from summer blockbusters, a time now almost exclusively known for “tentpole” films. * Not that Jaws doesn’t deserve its box office success. Like the great white shark referred to by the title, the movie itself is an almost perfect machine. Its monster is terrifying, its main characters are compelling and human. The look of the film, John Williams’ famous musical score, the performances – all top notch. It’s also a significant cultural marker – inspiring fear of the ocean and a fear of sharks in a manner similar to how Psycho inspired fear of showers.

Jaws is one of those high-concept movies that can be viewed as a major limb on the tree of horror – look at how many branches have sprung off from it (countless ripoffs, homages, and its own 3 sequels). Even movies like Ridley Scott’s Alien owe a little something to Jaws. Tis a good thing we’re secure in our masculinity! In case you’ve been living on a desert island for the past 40 years, Jaws (based on the bestselling novel by Peter Benchley) concerns Chief Brody (Roy Scheider), a NYC transplant on the quaint little island community of Amity, along with his wife (Lorraine Gary) and sons (Chris Rebello, Jay Mello). It’s a cushy job, where the worst crime Brody has to deal with involves kids breaking fences, illegally parked vehicles, or zoning violations. Then there’s the upcoming 4th of July celebration, where scores of tourists will descend on Amity for some fun in the sun. All that is put in jeopardy when a girl (Susan Backlinie) is horribly attacked while night swimming and her mangled corpse washes up on the beach.

(Sidenote: this first death and the final death-by-shark are the most disturbing deaths in the film). The mayor (Murray Hamilton) is a sleazeball (usually dressed in a tacky suit with anchors drawn on it) who doesn’t want to hear the word “shark,” since it would cause Amity to kiss its summer tourist dollars goodbye, so he tells the medical examiner to rewrite it as a boating accident and orders Brody to keep the beaches open. After a young boy (Jeffrey Voorhees) becomes the shark’s next victim, the town freaks and everyone hits the waters looking to kill the shark and collect the reward money. A tiger shark is captured but Oceanographic Institute expert Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss, amazing here) notices that the bite radius on the first victim is different. It’s not enough to convince Mayor Vaughn, who wants to keep the beaches open for July 4th festivities. Big mistake. This all leads to the second half of the film where Brody and Hooper charter a boat run by Quint (Robert Shaw, also great) and proceed to hunt the creature down. We hope Quint and Hooper remember to drink to this guy’s leg later.

It’s actually in the second hour where Jaws really shines. In the way that Alien is like two films in one, Jaws‘ first hour is monster horror, buildup, and paranoia (all very well done), while the second hour is like a high-seas adventure. The first half introduces us to Brody’s fear of the water, guilt over the boy’s death, and worry as he watches the swimmers with great concern (the scene where the false alarms rack his nerves is expertly done). The fact that Spielberg’s mechanical shark “Bruce” was malfunctioning for most of the shoot is fortuitous, since he uses the opportunity to amp up the suspense levels by showing the shark’s point of view, accompanied by the familiar, menacing soundtrack. This works in the movie’s favor, since the shark is not constantly on display and consequently the audience does not become too used to seeing it. Compared to a lot of horror movies released since 1975, Jaws isn’t particularly terrifying, but that’s ok, since it has more on its mind than sea monster horrors. This is a thriller that works on different levels – horror, drama, character piece, procedural.

Robert Shaw’s iconic performance as Quint really steals the show here; he’s very close to a modern day Captain Ahab. (In fact, the technical aspects involved in shark hunting reminded me of some of the technical jargon that permeates Moby Dick ). Quint is an old-school seaman, and he takes an immediate dislike to Hooper’s new-school, technology-dependent methods. But Spielberg lets these characters grow, leading to a reconciliation of sorts in a classic scene where Quint and Hooper compare battle scars, followed by Quint’s sobering story about the USS Indianapolis . SeaQuest Captain Nathan Bridger takes shore leave. There are a lot of classic scenes here – the underwater shots from the great white’s POV, the dialogue (“You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”), the Quint/Hooper rivalry (and the scene at the end where an exhausted Quint asks to use Hooper’s tools in desperation), the shark’s uncanny ability to turn the tables on the heroes, the music, Quint ominously singing Spanish Ladies . The only problems I have with Jaws are relatively minor: I find it difficult to accept that a small town of people would so eagerly put profits ahead of lives.

I also find the survival of one particular character at the end a bit of a cop-out, but then again I have read that this may be a sly commentary on that person’s particular philosophy (as opposed to that of another, who doesn’t survive). I don’t know if I can read too much into Jaws‘ screenplay beyond the commonly discussed post-Watergate cynicism. (But even the asshole mayor finally reveals his humanity). I think Jaws is best seen, not as the perfect horror film, but perfect 1970s filmmaking – the kind of picture that takes its time, delivers naturalistic dialogue (and no ridiculous exposition needed), features wonderful acting on the part of Scheider, Shaw, and Dreyfuss, and shows Spielberg’s obvious love for cinema and how it can be a communal, cathartic experience. It’s ironic that a movie responsible for the rise of the big budget blockbuster would have all the good qualities that today’s blockbusters lack. And about Bruce the shark – I think he looks great. – Bill Gordon The new Blu-ray release of Jaws in Universal’s 100th Anniversary collection is pristine. Steven Spielberg has given his own blessing over the transfer, restored from original film elements.

The HD version of Jaws comes in 1080p 2:35:1, with DTS HD 7.1 audio. Bonus features are extensive: a 2 hour documentary called The Making of Jaws (everything you want to know about the making of the film is in here), a featurette called Jaws: The Restoration, delete scenes, a new feature length documentary called The Shark is Still Working (pretty decent, but more of a fan’s love letter than anything else), theatrical trailer, and more. The DVD that comes with it (this is a Blu-ray/DVD combo + digital copy) also has a 50 minute trimmed-down version of The Making of Jaws. You’re not going to find a better version than this one, so snap it up. I’m proud of this one, even though it’s not my best Photoshop. 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 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’ sends shivers of terror down the spine: 1975 review - NY Daily News ‘Jaws’ sends shivers of terror down the spine: 1975 review ‘Jaws’ sends shivers of terror down the spine: 1975 review NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Ted Grossman in the movie "Jaws".

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Friday, May 29, 2015, 11:59 AM (Originally published by the Daily News on June 21, 1975. This story was written by Kathleen Carroll.) Robert Shaw, sinking his capped teeth into the role with his usual gusto, is Quint, a squinty-eyed shark hunter with a tendency to be as obsessive about his work as Captain Ahab. Speaking with salted tongue, and in a dialect he must have picked up from some drunken sailor, Shaw has a moving monologue in which he tells of a harrowing experience at sea. His story, presumably based on actual fact, concerns the Indianapolis, a U.S. vessel that went down in the Pacific in the last days of World War II. Because the ship’s mission was a secret one, there were no attempts at rescue. The survivors were simply left to be picked off by sharks, one by one. All that could be heard was “that horrible high pitched screaming,” Shaw recalls. You may be hearing some of that same screaming when “Jaws” begins to terrorize movie audiences across the country.

It is a stunningly effective thriller, as cleverly engineered by director Steven Spielberg (with considerable assist from film editor, Verna Fields) as the mechanical sharks that everyone knows by now play the great white shark which in the original novel by Peter Benchley, threatens tourist trade with its rather indiscriminate eating habits. Except for those few brief seconds when it heaves itself out of the water and seems more like a creature from Disneyworld, the shark in a very real-looking menace, sending shivers of terror down the spine. An undated copy of the New York Daily News is seen in this image. (New York Daily News) And Spielberg had paced the film beautifully so that one is always on edge, tensed for those scary moments that turn out to be false alarms (a black fin, in the water, for instance, that is eventually exposed as a bathing cap), and left somehow totally unprepared for the real shocks. Benchley and actor Carl Gottlieb, in writing the screenplay, have chosen to strip away the fleshy part of the novel (all that silly stuff about the police chief’s wife committing adultery with Hooper, the ichthyologist) in order to get down to the bare bones of the plot.

It was a very wise choice. The film moves forward with the speed and directness of a harpoon until there is nothing left but the final gut-twisting confrontation, pitting man against a creature so mysterious and strangely indestructible it must be seen as a symbol of evil. L-R: American actors Richard Dreyfuss, Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw on board a boat in a still from the film, 'Jaws,' directed by Steven Spielberg, 1975. (Universal Pictures/Getty Images) In this 1975 film image originally released by Universal Pictures, Roy Scheider, left, and Richard Dreyfuss are shown in a scene from the movie "Jaws," 1975. (AP) The dialogue appears to have been worked over on the spot but the actors are so wonderfully personable it doesn’t matter in the least. Roy Scheider plays Police Chief Brody, with his customary reserve and quiet strength, while delighting us with his frailties, his hatred of water, for instance, that prompts his wife to insist that he take along a bottle of Dramamine on the shark hunt.

Scheider is allowed one truly touching scene, in which he sits brooding at the dining room table, his young son copying every gesture of despair. Richard Dreyfuss, as fully of cocky charm and intensity as he is in real life, is the “rich” kid who has made a passionate study of sharks. And of course there is Shaw who puts his hooks into every scene he has. Personally, I should like to thank Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown, the makers of “Jaws,” for their efforts to promote tourism in my home town, Lake Placid. That may not have been their intention, but I guarantee you that mountain resorts with their relatively safe, fresh water lakes, are going to be doing a tremendous business this summerarchiv. Tags: Jaws (Trailer 1) Trailer (1975) - Video Detective Tags: great white shark , peter benchley Description: Directed by Academy Award® winner Steven Spielberg, Jaws set the standard for edge-of-your seat suspense quickly becoming a cultural phenomenon and forever changing the movie industry.

When the seaside community of Amity finds itself under attack by a dangerous great white shark, the town's chief of police (Roy Scheider), a young marine biologist (Richard Dreyfuss) and a grizzled shark hunter (Robert Shaw) embark on a desperate quest to destroy the beast before it strikes again. Featuring an unforgettable score that evokes pure terror, Jaws remains one of the most influential and gripping adventures in motion picture history. Release Date: 6/20/1975 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. Jaws released - Jun 20, 1975 - HISTORY.com Jaws released Publisher A+E Networks The ominous tones of the now-famous “shark theme” (composed by John Williams and performed by tuba player Tommy Johnson) mark the arrival of Hollywood’s first major summer blockbuster on this day in 1975, when the director Steven Spielberg’s thriller Jaws debuts in U.S. theaters.

Based on the best-selling book by Peter Benchley, Jaws takes place in the fictional resort town of Amity Island, where police chief Martin Brody (played by Roy Scheider) learns that a young woman has been killed in a probable shark attack. Though greedy town officials want to cover up the threat to tourist business, another attack forces Brody to enlist the help of a marine biologist (Richard Dreyfuss) and a shark hunter (Robert Shaw) to try to catch the lethal beast, which turns out to be an enormous great white shark. Producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown hired Spielberg for Jaws before the release of the then-27-year-old director’s first feature, 1974’s The Sugarland Express, which they also produced. The shooting, off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, went much longer than scheduled, and the film’s budget ballooned from $4 million to $8 million.

According to a 1982 article about Spielberg in TIME magazine, executives at Universal (which co-produced the film with Zanuck and Brown) even threatened to shut down production at one point and put “Bruce”–the mechanical shark used in the film–on display as part of its Universal City tour. Instead, Universal opted to give Jaws a wide release instead of rolling it out to a small number of theaters first, as had been conventional practice up to that point. It opened nationwide on close to 500 screens (a small number compared to one of today’s big releases, which go out on 3,000-4,000 screens) but sizeable at the time. A $700,000 marketing campaign on network television preceded the film’s release, helping it to earn some $7 million in its opening weekend alone. Up until that time, summer had been seen as a period when producers would release films they considered weak, but Jaws ushered in the era of the summer blockbuster, as well as the studio practice of launching massive marketing campaigns to hype their films. Eventually shown in nearly 700 U.S.

theaters, Jaws became the first summer mega-hit, racking up an impressive $260 million at the domestic box-office. All told, the film would gross some $450 million worldwide and establish Spielberg (who would strike more summer box-office gold with hits such as 1982’s E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial) as the pre-eminent creator of summer movie magic. Related Videos

Question: Who directed the 1975 film 'Jaws'?
Answer: Steven Spielberg