Jaws Movie

Based on Peter Benchley's best-selling novel, Steven Spielberg's 1975 shark saga set the standard for the New Hollywood popcorn blockbuster while frightening millions of moviegoers out of the water. One early summer night on fictional Atlantic resort Amity Island, Chrissie decides to take a moonlight skinny dip while her friends party on the beach. Yanked suddenly below the ocean surface, she never returns. When pieces of her wash ashore, Police Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) suspects the worst, but Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton), mindful of the lucrative tourist trade and the approaching July 4th holiday, refuses to put the island on a business-killing shark alert. After the shark dines on a few more victims, the Mayor orders the local fishermen to catch the culprit. Satisfied with the shark they find, the greedy Mayor reopens the beaches, despite the warning from visiting ichthyologist Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) that the attacks were probably caused by a far more formidable Great White. One more fatality later, Brody and Hooper join forces with flinty old salt Quint (Robert Shaw), the only local fisherman willing to take on a Great White--especially since the price is right. The three ride off on Quint's boat "The Orca," soon coming face to teeth with the enemy.

Shooting on Martha's Vineyard with a mechanical shark dubbed "Bruce," 27-year-old Steven Spielberg wanted to shoot Jaws on the open water for as much terrifying realism as possible. Between rewrites of Robert Benchley's and Carl Gottlieb's script, the unruly ocean, and the glitch-laden shark, the shoot went way over schedule and the budget ballooned to $10 million, leading everyone to believe that they had a B-movie disaster on their hands. However, Spielberg and editor Verna Fields turned the liability of an obviously fake Bruce into a potent source of fear by leaving the shark unseen until the final battle. Instead, swift cuts between swimmers above the surface and underwater shark's-eye views of helplessly dangling legs, combined with John Williams's pounding score, create a relentless atmosphere of primal horror. With an ad image of a giant shark aiming for a tiny female, Universal Studios aggressively marketed Jaws as a thrilling "event," especially in primetime spots on TV, a then seldom-used advertising venue for movies. Bucking the old practice of using wide releases for stinkers, Universal opened the heavily-anticipated film in over 400 theaters in June 1975, and it shattered box office records. Tapping into an abiding dread of the unknown, made scarier by the reality of Great White sharks and corrupt bureaucrats as well as by Spielberg's effective orchestration of excitement, Jaws became the first film ever to return over $100 million to its studio. Producers David Brown and Richard D. Zanuck received a Best Picture Oscar nomination, but wunderkind Spielberg was passed over for Best Director. The film's technical achievements were rewarded with Oscars for Editing, Sound, and Score. With the lines at the box office, the proliferation of Jaws products, and a rash of reported shark attacks, Jaws became a cultural phenomenon and the first bona fide summer event movie, leading the thrill-packed and profitable way for summers to come.