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Jaws (1975)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast overview: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw
Running time: 124 minutes
Based on Peter Benchley's popular novel, Jaws is, in my opinion, a Hollywood masterpiece. The story is simplistic yet gripping, and should be recognisable by all: a great white shark terrorising the small Amity Island community, and the local police chief, an oceanographer and a professional shark hunter paid $10,000 by the town set out to stop it. The simplicity works so well because it results in a story that is easy to follow and still captivating.
Brody, played by Scheider, is the local police chief, an everyman that is endearing but also somewhat out of his depth at the challenge that faces him, though he does acquit himself well. Hooper, Dreyfuss' character and the role that propelled him to stardom, is a young, brash oceanographer. However, it's Robert Shaw's character, Quint, who is the most dynamic in the film, I feel. Enigmatic yet also strangely malevolent, he is almost the modern-day Captain Ahab, and he represents a charismatic on-screen presence, thanks in no small part to the acting credentials of Shaw himself.
Spielberg's direction elevates this to a higher level, as does the script that ranges from the witty to the chilling, containing lines that have passed into cinema lore, such as the "you're gonna need a bigger boat" and Quint's unforgettable tale of the Indianapolis incident. John Williams' now-iconic score is undoubtedly one of the best ever composed in cinema, and its menacing build-up to a crescendo fits perfectly with the shark itself. Indeed, the shark is a character in itself, albeit one of the more unorthodox film villains, but it has a marvellous presence that is at least on a par with other film villains.
The credibility and sheer entertainment factor combine to create one of the greatest thrillers of all-time, and a classic that will go down in cinema history as Spielberg's arguable peak.
Quotes
Brody: You're gonna need a bigger boat.
Hooper: You were on the Indianapolis?
Brody: What happened?
Quint: Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte... just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen footer. You know, you know that when you're in the water, chief? You tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. Well, we didn't know. 'Cause our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent, huh. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, chief. The sharks come cruisin'. So we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know it's... kinda like 'ol squares in battle like uh, you see on a calendar, like the battle of Waterloo. And the idea was, the shark goes to the nearest man and then he'd start poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark would go away. Sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark, he's got... lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'. Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white. And then, ah then you hear that terrible high pitch screamin' and the ocean turns red and spite of all the poundin' and the hollerin' they all come in and rip you to pieces. Y'know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men! I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand! I don't know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday mornin' chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player, Bosun's Mate. I thought he was asleep, reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up and down in the water, just like a kinda top. Up ended. Well... he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us, he swung in low and he saw us. He's a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper, anyway he saw us and come in low. And three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and start to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened? Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.
Quint: Here lies the body of Mary Lee; died at the age of a hundred and three. For fifteen years she kept her virginity; not a bad record for this vicinity.
Trivia
Several decades later, Lee Fierro, who plays Mrs. Kintner, walked into a seafood restaurant and noticed that the menu had an "Alex Kintner Sandwich". She commented that she had played his mother so many years ago. The owner of the restaurant ran out to meet her - none other than Jeffrey Voorhees, who had played her son. They hadn't seen each other since the original movie shoot.
The mechanical shark spent most of the movie broken-down, and was unavailable for certain shots. This led Steven Spielberg to use the camera as the "shark", and film from the shark's point of view. Many think this added to the "chilling/haunting" quality in the final release saying that it would have made it too "cheesy" had they shown the shark as much as originally planned.
According to writer Carl Gottlieb, the line "You're gonna need a bigger boat" was not scripted but improvised by Roy Scheider.
Trailer
Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast overview: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw
Running time: 124 minutes
Based on Peter Benchley's popular novel, Jaws is, in my opinion, a Hollywood masterpiece. The story is simplistic yet gripping, and should be recognisable by all: a great white shark terrorising the small Amity Island community, and the local police chief, an oceanographer and a professional shark hunter paid $10,000 by the town set out to stop it. The simplicity works so well because it results in a story that is easy to follow and still captivating.
Brody, played by Scheider, is the local police chief, an everyman that is endearing but also somewhat out of his depth at the challenge that faces him, though he does acquit himself well. Hooper, Dreyfuss' character and the role that propelled him to stardom, is a young, brash oceanographer. However, it's Robert Shaw's character, Quint, who is the most dynamic in the film, I feel. Enigmatic yet also strangely malevolent, he is almost the modern-day Captain Ahab, and he represents a charismatic on-screen presence, thanks in no small part to the acting credentials of Shaw himself.
Spielberg's direction elevates this to a higher level, as does the script that ranges from the witty to the chilling, containing lines that have passed into cinema lore, such as the "you're gonna need a bigger boat" and Quint's unforgettable tale of the Indianapolis incident. John Williams' now-iconic score is undoubtedly one of the best ever composed in cinema, and its menacing build-up to a crescendo fits perfectly with the shark itself. Indeed, the shark is a character in itself, albeit one of the more unorthodox film villains, but it has a marvellous presence that is at least on a par with other film villains.
The credibility and sheer entertainment factor combine to create one of the greatest thrillers of all-time, and a classic that will go down in cinema history as Spielberg's arguable peak.
Quotes
Brody: You're gonna need a bigger boat.
Hooper: You were on the Indianapolis?
Brody: What happened?
Quint: Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte... just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen footer. You know, you know that when you're in the water, chief? You tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. Well, we didn't know. 'Cause our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent, huh. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, chief. The sharks come cruisin'. So we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know it's... kinda like 'ol squares in battle like uh, you see on a calendar, like the battle of Waterloo. And the idea was, the shark goes to the nearest man and then he'd start poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark would go away. Sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark, he's got... lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'. Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white. And then, ah then you hear that terrible high pitch screamin' and the ocean turns red and spite of all the poundin' and the hollerin' they all come in and rip you to pieces. Y'know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men! I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand! I don't know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday mornin' chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player, Bosun's Mate. I thought he was asleep, reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up and down in the water, just like a kinda top. Up ended. Well... he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us, he swung in low and he saw us. He's a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper, anyway he saw us and come in low. And three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and start to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened? Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.
Quint: Here lies the body of Mary Lee; died at the age of a hundred and three. For fifteen years she kept her virginity; not a bad record for this vicinity.
Trivia
Several decades later, Lee Fierro, who plays Mrs. Kintner, walked into a seafood restaurant and noticed that the menu had an "Alex Kintner Sandwich". She commented that she had played his mother so many years ago. The owner of the restaurant ran out to meet her - none other than Jeffrey Voorhees, who had played her son. They hadn't seen each other since the original movie shoot.
The mechanical shark spent most of the movie broken-down, and was unavailable for certain shots. This led Steven Spielberg to use the camera as the "shark", and film from the shark's point of view. Many think this added to the "chilling/haunting" quality in the final release saying that it would have made it too "cheesy" had they shown the shark as much as originally planned.
According to writer Carl Gottlieb, the line "You're gonna need a bigger boat" was not scripted but improvised by Roy Scheider.
Trailer