The Movie: The people of Amity Island are terrorized by a shark during the summer tourist season. Police Chief Brody (Roy Scheider), Shark Expert Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), and Shark Hunter Quint (Robert Shaw) set out on a boat to rid the waters of the maneater. Hilarity ensues.
The DVD: I have the anniversary edition of this movie. It includes a very good making of documentary with new interviews (Richard Dreyfuss has white hair). It also includes a twelve question trivia game in which you need to watch the documentary to answer some of the questions, although they give you plenty of clues in the form of video clips. It has a few deleted scenes and very few outtakes.
The Experience: This movie is extraordinary. It is celebrating it's thirtieth anniversary this year. It is a wonder it ever got made. Speilberg even says that he is not sure he could make it today. He had major problems with the animatronic shark named Bruce. In short, it didn't work. The Orca, Quint's ship, sank...with the actors on it. A possible Actor's Guild strike caused the studio to rush into production. Not bad considering Jaws became the first movie to make $100 million at the box office and cause a generation to be wary of the waves.
Jaws, contrary to popular belief, is not about the fish, it is about the three men that hunt the fish. Jaws is a classic buddy movie. The Police Chief who doesn't like the water, a young scientist who is about to go live on a research ship, and an old sailor with a past. In a sense, the trouble with Bruce made the picture better. Speilberg developed the characters better. The shark wasn't really seen until halfway through the movie. John Williams' score practically became the beast. What is more frightening then not seeing the monster creeping up on you? Listening to the DaDum DaDum. It still sends chills down my back.
The Aftermath: As all big movies seem to do, Jaws spawned three sequeals. Jaws 2 didn't have the mystery. Jaws 3-D didn't have Roy Scheider to fall back on after the gimmick of 3-D. And Jaws the Revenge didn't have the...Actually, didn't see it.
The Score: 9 out of 10 fins, what do you think?
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3 comments:
The one thing I remember the most about Jaws is about the actress that got eaten while she was skinny dipping in the ocean. The rumor was that when she was getting pulled down by the harnesses they had on her to do the scene, they broke her ribs, or she died or something silly like that. When you're young and hear about things that happen for real on a movie set, seeing the scene makes kind of cool to watch. I have no idea what really happened to her. Was that all hype back then, or did she really get hurt?
And, we've all done the dudumm dudumm while stepping into the ocean, haven't we?
I don't think she died, considering she was on the making of documentary talking about the scene. She was a stuntwoman. She was on a harness with Steven Speilberg on the other end. Then she was on a harness attached on both sides with four or five burly guys on the beach running and tugging back and forth. She said the only thing that scared her was that if she got hurt, how would anyone know since she was screaming bloody murder, but she said all she had to do was pull a string and the harness would release. Another Myth Busted.
I figured as much. I just remember hearing rumers when the movie first came out that she had her ribs broken.
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