Max’s Drive-In Movie -Jaws

Da-Dum, Da-Dum, Da-Dum…

June 20, 1975, was not only the opening of this movie but it turned into a huge pop culture event of the 1970s. It’s a movie known around the world. There were T-shirts, novelty songs, and hype…but the movie lived up to it and then some. 

Why was it so great? For me, I would say that Spielberg kept it simple. Jaws is based on the 1974 novel by Peter Benchley, which was inspired by a series of shark attacks off the coast of New Jersey in 1916. Benchley’s book tells the story of a great white shark terrorizing a small coastal town, and the efforts of three men to hunt it down. 

The acting in this was excellent to me. The one that I always pick out is Robert Shaw as the character Quint. He makes himself known quickly by the fingernails down the chalkboard tactic. Shaw made that character real to me. My favorite scene was him telling the story of delivering the atomic bomb, the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, and the shark attacks that happened. His performance is probably the main reason for Jaws being one of my favorite films of all time. The speech is based on a real event. The USS Indianapolis sank in 1945, resulting in the greatest loss of life due to shark attacks in history.

Spielberg wanted Lee Marvin for Quint and Jon Voight for Hooper. Spielberg got it right for this film. Roy Scheider as Martin and newcomer Richard Dreyfuss as Matt Hooper were great. It’s the realism that Shaw added that pushed this over. 

Spielberg’s use of tension, combined with John Williams’ score proved that a horror thriller could achieve both critical and commercial success. The film won three Academy Awards (for editing, score, and sound) and remains highly regarded by critics. But perhaps its greatest legacy is even today, many people feel some fear whenever they step into the ocean.

John Williams…The man is renowned for his film scores. Along with Jaws and barely scratching the surface…he also did Star Wars, Indiana Jones, E.T., Harry Potter, and Jurassic Park, just to name a few. 

The movies Duel and Jaws were Spielberg’s first two big movies. They share a common thread. Duel features a large diesel truck that is much like Jaws on dry land. Both movies work well. 

PLOT

It’s a hot summer on Amity Island, a small community whose primary 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. It doesn’t sit well with Mayor Larry Vaughn and several local business people. Brody backs down to his regret of that weekend. A predator kills a young boy. The dead boy’s mother puts out a bounty on the shark, and Amity is soon swamped with amateur hunters and fishermen 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 hunting the Great White shark at sea. As Brody succinctly surmises after their first encounter with the creature, they will need a bigger boat.

QUOTES

  • Quint: [Quint first scratches the chalk board to get everyone’s attention] Y’all know me. Know how I earn a livin’. I’ll catch this bird for you, but it ain’t gonna be easy. Bad fish. Not like going down the pond chasin’ bluegills and tommycods. This shark, swallow you whole. Little shakin’, little tenderizin’, an’ down you go. And we gotta do it quick, that’ll bring back your tourists, 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. But you’ve gotta make up your minds. If you want to stay alive, then ante up. If you 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 just too many captains on this island. $10,000 for me by myself. For that you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing.

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  • Ellen Brody: Martin hates boats. Martin hates water. Martin… Martin sits in his car when we go on the ferry to the mainland. I guess it’s a childhood thing. It’s a… there’s a clinical name for it isn’t there?
  • Brody: Drowning.

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  • Brody: You’re gonna need a bigger boat.

..,

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

77 thoughts on “Max’s Drive-In Movie -Jaws”

  5. Once again Max awesome stuff…for my brother & I Jaws was a real memory. Although neither of us saw it in the theatre when it came out (I was 10 & he was going on 7) on that cross country trip that I’ve mentioned that I saw the Spinners at Disneyland on my 9th birthday in July of ’73 we also visited Universal Studios & did the tour. And on that tour they showed us the set of Jaws & saw the big fish or the play big fish & we got to stand by it…of course the movie wasn’t out as of yet. That & seeing the ‘Lucy Show’ set & the big furniture from ‘Land of the Giants’ is what I remember the most about that visit to Universal Studios. I loved the 1st Jaws…never really watched the the other one’s. Great stuff!

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    1. Oh man how fantastic! What a trip that was Carl. Land of the Giants! I have seen a few episodes of that and I loved it. Along with The Time Tunnel and others from that era. I loved the stories they came up with…most of the scifi shows had writers who wrote for the Twilight Zone and others. Do you remember on Saturday Mornings watching Land Of The Lost? The special effects were bad but the stories were great! Again all of those scifi writers wrote for that one also…ah the sleestaks.

      I didn’t see Jaws either at the theater. We lived in the country and a movie theater was at least 40 minutes away on a good day. My mom was a divorced working mom so I didn’t get to see Star Wars and others at the time. I caught most of these movies like Jaws and Star Wars when on TV or cable at my cousin’s house in Nashville.

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      1. Max you & my little brother are about the same age (he’s 57) & you are both Sci-Fi buffs. He was all over Star Wars, he had the trading cards & the action figures the same Christmas that it came out (’77)…I was a young jock & missed out on that. Yes! We couldn’t wait for the ‘Land of the Lost’ every Saturday morning & Shazaam & Isis…oh ya’ the old Saturday morning cartoons…we were all over it!

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      2. I do love it! Sci-Fi is one of my favorite genres…that is why I love The Twlight Zone

        Oh yes! Shazaam and Isis…also there was one that I’ve only talked to one person who remembered…it was called “Big John Little John” where a guy would turn into himself as a 12 year old…no one remembers that one for some reason.

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    1. Everything about this movie is good…the acting, writing, and directing. Steven Spielberg is not my favorite director but with this one and Duel I love what he did. Later on…to me he got really safe. Thats why I am really enjoying Kubrick right now…he is not safe and will try things.

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      1. It’s been a longtime since I’ve seen it, but I do remember thinking it was well-made and definitely a notch or three above most horror flicks. Never kept me out of the water though, LOL… mind you, as a non-swimmer, I’d only go out about waist deep when we went to Florida. Once or twice we think we saw sharks go by somewhat farther offshore.

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      2. I swim in a pool but only wade or fish in the ocean. I was telling Lisa the other day where I was on a float and went to sleep…the beach looked VERY small…I was scared to death and paddled in.
        I caught a shark deep sea fishing but they cut it off the line.

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    1. I told you about how as teens we would push each other to act like Spock all day at school…no emotions…just dumb things kids do. I would love to go to work tomorrow as Quint…but it would probably be my last.

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    1. It is a classic by itself. The 2nd one wasn’t bad bad but the 3rd one in “3D” was terrible! Guess which one I saw at the theater? That would be the terrible one.

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  11. I think I was the only person in my group of friends that didn’t see this in the theater. I never saw it until it was on TV. I agree with everything you said. The whole cast is great, but Shaw is on another level. I’m not the biggest Spielberg fan, but this and Duel are his best in my opinion. He even says in the Duel DVD extras that Jaws is basically Duel with a shark instead of a truck.

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    1. I didn’t see it at the theater either…I was 9 but we lived a good hour away from a movie theater. The one I did see unfortunately was Jaws 3D…
      I saw this in the 80s on a cable station. Thank you! I feel the exact same way about Spielberg. He plays it too safe for me…not saying he didn’t make any good movies of course he did…this one and Duel are my favorites by him as well. Yes…they are the same movies…Dennis Weaver was great in that one.
      Yea Robert Shaw was the one in this movie that really got me.

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      1. I just felt that E.T. and Indiana Jones and all those got out of hand. I remember seeing Duel when it first aired as a TV movie. My sister and I were blown away by it. It’s so effective not seeing the driver’s face. Oh, and let’s not forget the Night Gallery he directed with Joan Crawford.

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      2. Yes…that first episode of The Night Gallery was the best to me. The first story was my favorite with Roddy McDowell but the Crawford one was great…the irony of the blackout at the time when she could actually see.
        His movies got predictable or comfortable…

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  12. Momo and me watched Jaws a few months back. I had forgotten some of the better scenes, but I agree Robert Shaw’s presence made the film the classic it is. I saw Jaws in Corpus Christi the week it opened, along with my sister and one of my surfing buddies. It shook us up pretty good, because my buddies and me were entered in a surfing contest the coming weekend. ‘ you take your board into the water, the sharks in the water, you know the rest.’ I was scared sitting out in the lineup, legs dangling off each side of my board. I don’t surf anymore, and don’t plan on going into the Gulf anytime soon.

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    1. I was probably 12 when I finally got to see it in 79 and we went to Florida…I stayed in 3ft water after that.
      The last time we went to the Gulf was around 4 years ago and they reported some shark attacks…no deaths but still. I stayed in the shallow end. Seeing it real time…would have been cool.

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      2. Phil…I would have been to that beach as fast as I could go. More power to you sir to stay surfing.

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  16. We vacationed for 30+ years in Montauk on the tip of Long Island in New York. Quint was from that area. If you drive up to the harbor where all the fishing boats are docked, you’ll see a model of one of Quint’s sharks hanging from a winch on display for photo ops. It’s pretty impressive.

    I don’t watch a lot of scary movies, never saw any of the Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream or Chucky movies. I hate gore. There were two other movies that scared me as much as Jaws: In Cold Blood and Wait Until Dark.That music. John Williams is the master. The screen could be blank and that music would still scare me to death. I was so traumatized by Jaws, I never went swimming in the ocean again.

    Fantastic post.

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    1. That is really cool about Montauk. I don’t like a lot of gore either. In Cold Blood is awesome…I really like that one. My favorite one that never fails to give me chills is The Exorcist. I saw it last year in a theater.

      Thanks so much for stopping by!
      Max

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      1. Things I know can’t happen don’t usually scare me, like The Exorcist. It’s the movies about real live sick bastards that scare the crap out of me. One of the worst gore movies I ever saw was a dreadful thing called The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It was an awful movie.

        Talking about gore, I’m watching the Mets bleed out in Los Angeles. Sad for us New Yorkers! Three innings left and trying to remain optimistic.

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      2. Yea I understand that about things that shouldn’t happen. You are not going to like me now…lol but I’m a Dodger Fan! I live in Nashville but my dad grew up a Brooklyn Dodger fan and he passed it down. I’ve rooted for them since I was 10. Don’t hate me too much!

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      4. The last time they played in the World Series together I was 14 and it was 1981. The Dodgers finally beat them that year… I was so happy seeing Reggie Jackson fail lol.

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  21. One of my all-time favourites. While I wasn’t born when it was released originally I did see it on the big screen as part of a 25th or 30th anniversary re-release which was incredible!

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    1. Seeing a movie on the big screen can change it. I got to see The Shining and The Exorcist not long ago on big screen…it changes the movie.

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  22. Great movie! I had nightmares of sharks breaking through my bedroom window. A few weeks after I saw the movie I went to California and the beach for the first time. When I went into the water seaweed wrapped around my leg and I started screaming like a crazy person! Really embarrassing.

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    1. LOL…”like a crazy person” …thanks Dana…you gave me a great laugh today. I was scared as well!
      My nightmares are always me landing in a bunch of snakes.

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      4. Ok Max, here is the sequel: a couple of years later I visited California again and went on the Universal Studios tour. The little tram crossed over a lagoon and jaws jumps out right next to my seat! And, you guessed it, I screamed like a crazy person. Stupid shark! 😳

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  25. co-incidentally I saw this movie as a double feature with Airport ’80 in California in 1979′ my first experience of a largely young teen audience in the States – and I was amazed at how involved everyone was, screaming, laughing, applauding – UK audiences not nearly so demonstrative! They were even enthusiastic for the terrible second film about Concorde airplane crisis – maybe it doesnt get shown anymore due to the real life disaster decades later, or maybe cos it’s just bad.

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    1. I only got to see Jaws 3D at the theater…and it was awful! This one would have been really cool to see. Yea I can see Americans being much louder.

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