Back in 1975, Steven Spielberg’s original Jaws movie scared a generation out of the water. Quite literally for some of us, this was a horror movie that could actually be real! No ghost, no zombies, werewolves or other make-believe monsters, this was a real living creature!
1: It’s not just a monster movie, it’s a human drama too!
Based on the novel by Peter Benchley – with a script sharpened by comedy writer Carl Gottlieb, Jaws is a gripping human drama that just happens to have a 25ft Great White shark running amok.
Police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) is hoping for a more relaxing, quiet beat with less action, less crime than his time as a New York cop. But after a midnight skinny-dipper is mauled and marine biologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) suspects a monstrous Great White. Brody is drawn into a showdown with Amity’s blundering Mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton), who brushes off the danger in order to keep the tourist dollars flowing.
As much as the shark is the centre of the movie, at the heart of Jaws is the relationship, and growing camaraderie, between Brody, Hooper and Quint. Alone at sea in a not-big-enough boat, in a game of cat and mouse with the most primal danger the oceans have to offer. We care about these characters and there’s no telling who, if any, will walk away from the encounter with their sea legs still attached.
2: Jaws is one of the most quotable movies ever!
Thanks to screenwriters Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb, Jaws was full of some of the best and most quoted movies ever. There’s Quint spelling out to Amity’s governors what he’ll give them for his fee: “Ten thousand dollars, for me, by myself. For that, you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing.”
There’s Hooper’s fiery assessment of the first mutilated victim washed up on the beach: “This is not a boat accident! It wasn’t any propeller! It wasn’t any coral reef! And it wasn’t Jack the Ripper! It was a shark.”
But did you know: the film’s most iconic line was actually ad-libbed on the spot by Scheider. As Brody shovels bloody chum into the water and the gigantic shark breaks the surface, the shellshocked police chief murmurs the understatement of the year: “You’re gonna need a bigger boat…”
3: One of the most powerful monologue’s in movie history!
Often cited as the most powerful monologue in movie history, Quint’s account of the sinking of the real-life USS Indianapolis warship on which he served during WW2 is chilling. As the three men drink whiskey in the cabin of the Orca, the sea dog recalls the Japanese torpedo that took down the Indianapolis in July 1945, leaving a thousand seamen flailing in the ocean as tiger sharks moved in for the kill.
The dialogue is full of perfectly observed horror (“The thing about a shark is he’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes, like a doll’s eyes…”). But it’s the haunted intensity of Shaw’s delivery that changes the temperature of the movie in that moment.
4: Robert Shaw’s mad fisherman is the most dangerous character in the movies
The cast of Jaws stands up there, against any movie, even today! The performances of Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss are both Oscar-worthy-good. But ask a Jaws fan for the film’s standout turn and they’ll refer you to Robert Shaw as Quint, the maniacal shark hunter paid $10,000 by Amity’s desperate authorities to serve up the gutted fish. Salty, boozy, haunted by the past and obsessed with the shark he views as his nemesis, Quint leads Brody and Hooper out on his old wooden Orca fishing boat to snare the big fish and – SPOILER ALERT – his blood-belching last stand is a scene you’ll never forget!
5: Jaws has the iconic ‘shark cage’ scene
There are famous movie scenes – and then there’s the iconic shark cage sequence from the original Jaws, that even today in more recent movies has never been able to replicate to the level of this scene.
Hooper is the one that jumps into a flimsy steel Shark Cage to inject the Great White with a lethal dose of strychnine from a hypodermic spear. The scene that follows is a cinematic masterclass of tension and release – eerie silence one minute, jagged teeth in your face the next.
Meanwhile, capturing the footage of a real shark attacking the cage was actually the most dangerous moment in the whole filming of Jaws. “A huge 16-foot great white got caught in the wench connected to the cage,” shark expert Valerie Taylor told InsideHook of shooting in Dangerous Reef, South Australia. “The shark started thrashing around, the wench broke off the side of the boat and fell down into a frothing mess in the sea. The cage was destroyed… if an actor had been in it, he would have died.”
6: Today, Jaws looks better than ever! Over the years the movie has been treated to a 4K overhaul, taken to the IMAX and even given a 3D treatment
Forget 1983’s, Jaws 3D sequel, and the shoddy green/red-lensed cardboard glasses handed to punters at the cinema.
There are many ways to watch everyones favourite shark movie! The 30th Anniversary BluRay gave us a 4K overhaul of the movie, its had IMAX & 3D treatment at the movies in recent years and there are various other Limited Anniversary Edition’s on BluRay & DVD. And who knows with the 50th Anniversary BluRay or the 50th Anniversary cinema return this September.
And lets face it… It doesn’t matter how many times you watch this iconic movie, it never gets boring! And theres always at least one moment in the movie that will still make you jump!
7: Duh-duh! Duh-duh! Duh-duh! Jaws has that unforgettable theme tune that just sends shivers down your spine!
Duh-duh! Duh-duh! Duh-duh! Composer John Williams’ Jaws theme is basically built around just two notes. And yet every-time you hear that iconic tune, somehow, that jarring musical motif conjures the nightmare vision of an ancient killer rising from the deep with its razor teeth, ready for its next meal.
8: Jaws is loaded with tons of cool ‘Geek’ level trivia
There is so much trivia with this movie!… There’s the fact that the animatronic shark was named Bruce in honour of Spielberg’s lawyer, Bruce Ramer. There’s the revelation that a hapless George Lucas got his head stuck in the contraption’s mouth while visiting the set. Did you know when shooting Quint’s account of the sinking of the real-life USS Indianapolis warship on which he served during WW2, Robert Shaw is actually drunk? The scene was filmed with Shaw sober and drunk, you wouldn’t know which one he is drunk in. And did you know that the detonated shark makes the exact same sound as the killer truck when it plummets over the cliff in Spielberg’s 1971 debut feature, Duel?
9: Jaws solidifies Steven Spielberg as a titan of the movie industry
It could have gone so very differently!… Spielberg blew the budget up, went over filming deadline by over 100 days, had mechanical issues with the sharks, there was a possible actors strike on the horizon and there was talk of Spielberg being ‘Black Listed’ by Hollywood, he was even quoted saying “I thought my career as a filmmaker was over. I heard rumours that I would never work again…”.
Needless to say, all was forgiven when Jaws became the highest-grossing film in US box office history, and Spielberg has since thrilled us with everything from E.T. to Jurassic Park.
10: Jaws was the world’s first event movie
With 1975’s Jaws, Steven Spielberg and Universal Pictures single handedly invented the summer blockbuster, blanket-bombing the public with a $1.8 million marketing campaign, screening the movie in 490 cinemas across the US, giving viewers the scare of their lives and letting word-of-mouth do the rest.
Star Wars, Jurassic Park, the MCU – every popcorn-munching tentpole franchise in cinema history owes a debt to Spielberg’s trailblazing creature-feature. And even after all these years, there’s still nothing quite like Jaws on the big screen… So lets look forward to September 2025!
Entertainment Swindon 
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