By Gary Bennett
Has there ever been a more famous quote from a movie? A few may come to mind, but I’ll wager none serve to sum up the shocking, new-found peril faced by the protagonists like this famous one in the classic 1975 movie “Jaws.”
The well-known utterance from Chief Brody (played by Roy Scheider) came right after seeing for the first time the size and scale of the danger they faced as it glided past their small boat. It was said with a kind of matter-of-fact resignation and wide-eyed shock that seems to define the entire movie.
“Jaws” is celebrating its 50th anniversary this summer, having been released on June 20, 1975. Numerous festivities and events are planned. It will be re-released in theaters soon and is receiving a new home video release on June 17 from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, with an additional two hours of bonus footage. “Jaws” currently streams on Peacock.
“Jaws” was highly advertised and anticipated in 1975. In those days, online pre-sales were not a thing, of course, and long lines dominated every theater in which it played. It was not unusual for theaters to sell out repeatedly for weeks, disappointing many theatergoers (including myself) more than once. “Jaws” became one of the first giant summer blockbuster movies.
The director of the film was a young, largely unknown auteur named Steven Spielberg. The threat of a good scare drew theatergoers in, but the masterful work of Spielberg and three first-rate actors kept us coming back for more. The movie propelled Spielberg to unprecedented heights as a director, and the three stars, especially a young Richard Dreyfuss, to bigger and better roles and movie stardom.
To say that “Jaws” had an outsized effect on popular culture in 1975 may be the understatement of all time. People were so afraid of going into the water that long stretches of beach up and down both coasts, but especially in New England where the movie was set, were largely deserted. I saw this firsthand in Ocean City in 1975 and will never forget the eerie scene. Inexplicably, people were even queasy about swimming in lakes, rivers and pools, lest they be surprised by a wayward great white.
There are many things that made “Jaws” a brilliant movie, much more than the promised maritime mayhem. Foremost was the work of Spielberg. He insisted on filming “Jaws” in the ocean rather than a tank. The rough seas made for shaky cameras and a realism that belied the subject matter. Secondly, and much like Alfred Hitchcock before him, much of the terror is never seen but implied. It is left up to the audience’s wild imagination to amp up the terror.
Take, for instance, the opening scene. A tipsy female partygoer decides to go skinny dipping in the ocean late at night. First you hear the ominous theme music — “duh dum, duh dum, duh dum” — but then all you see is the young lady struggling in the water in the dark and being pulled under repeatedly. She can’t see the beast as it attacks her, dragging her along the surface of the water until he finally decides to eat her alive under the water and out of sight. The ocean turns red.
This creative decision by Spielberg puts the viewers in the shoes of the doomed partygoer. Theaters were largely quiet during this scene — not even gasps from the shocked audience who were just settling into their seats. Spielberg later admitted that problems with the mechanical shark (nicknamed Bruce) forced him to keep it largely unseen until the end of the movie when audiences were already hooked.
Another classic scene is the death of a little boy playing innocently in a nearby lagoon, sent there because of shark sightings in the ocean. There’s a lot happening along the crowded beach. The film keeps cutting back and forth to the boy playing in the lagoon, a dog playing fetch, and Chief Brody worriedly watching the chaos in the ocean. When the shark’s famous melody kicks in, we know the boy and dog are in trouble. First the dog disappears and then the boy struggles for a short time and is pulled under with a shriek. In an instant, it is over.
Perhaps even better than Spielberg’s direction is the work of the two veteran actors, Robert Shaw as Captain Quint and Roy Scheider as Chief of Police Brody, and Dreyfuss as oceanologist Matt Hooper.
The case can be made that “Jaws” is a buddy movie. It doesn’t start off that way as Quint and Hooper are constantly at each other’s throats, while Chief Brody tries heroically to keep them focused. Brody hires the salty, grizzled Quint to catch the shark while Hooper comes along at Brody’s behest, packed with all manner of hi-tech, shark-catching gizmos that Quint scoffs at. “I’ll bring you as ballast,” Quint sneers to the young Hooper.
After a few days of sighting the beast, spearing it with barrels and following it, the shark turns the tables and begins to hunt them, nearly pulling the doomed vessel apart. Then, late at night, as the three settle in for a short rest with a few well-deserved drinks, Quint and Hooper bond over injuries they’ve sustained in pursuit of their jobs.
Then comes THE MONOLOGUE. It is set right before the three have their final showdown with the shark. Even in a crowded theater, you could hear a pin drop as Quint tugs on his cap and speaks.
This long, sad remembrance of Quint’s doomed shipmates on the USS Indianapolis after they delivered the atom bomb in World War II cements Quint as one of the iconic movie characters of all time. As Brody and Hooper sit silently hanging on every word, Quint recalls the miserable tale of shipmates being eaten one by one by a host of sharks as the men bobbed helplessly in the Pacific Ocean waiting for rescue after their torpedoed ship goes down.
No matter how many times I see it, the power and delivery by Shaw is captivating. I challenge anyone reading this to find a clip of the monologue, watch it start to finish, and not be mesmerized. It is a stunning performance. Shaw should have won an Oscar for this monologue alone, but alas, he was not even nominated. The theory is that the three lead actors canceled each other out in the Oscar voting.
Gary Bennett is a longtime Frederick resident who spends his time hiking, biking, volunteering and providing childcare for grandchildren. He is married and retired from his career as a nonprofit marketing executive.