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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - June 20th

"JAWS" released in 1975

"You're going to need a bigger boat" - those iconic words echoed across more than 450 screens during the summer of 1975. And with an estimated 67 million Americans going to the see the now-classic shark movie, Steven Spielberg's Jaws, also played a major part in establishing summer as the prime season for the release of studios' biggest box-office contenders and coined the phrase 'blockbuster'. Set on Amity Island, a fictional New England summer resort town, the waters are about to be claimed by one of the seas greatest killing machines, a rogue great white shark!

When Amity Island police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) finds the remains of a missing swimmer, he is intially informed by the Medical Examiner she was the victim of a shark attack. Brody's first reaction is to close the beaches, but is later persuaded by the Mayor, Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) to reconsider it, as the news of a shark attack will effect the island's Fourth of July tourism trade; instead the death is ruled a "boating accident". Soon, another fatal attack results in the death of a local boy - in full view of everyone on the beach - and starts an amateur shark-hunting frenzy (spurred on by a $10,000 bounty offered by the boy's grieving mother). Coming to the island is oceanographer Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) who soon determines that a tiger-shark recently killed is not the one they are looking for, and subsequently he and Brody find the corpse of a local fisherman with a tooth "the size of a shot-glass" embedded in the wood of his sunken boat. However, Vaughn still stubbornly refuses to believe there is a problem, and dismisses Brody and Hooper's claims. The next day, the Fourth of July weekend, tourists pack the beach and the shark swims into a nearby estuary, killing a boater and nearly killing Brody's son, Michael. Brody finally convinces Vaughn to act, and he hires a local shark-hunter, Quint (played brilliantly by Robert Shaw) to kill the shark. Brody, Hooper and Quint then set out on the Orca to find and kill the shark, but instead encounter a creature like they have never seen before - a cunning, brutal, 3-ton, great white shark that will pit three men against nature's perfect killer!

Watch the Jaws trailer!

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at the bottom of today's blog, for more

Clips and Behind-the-Scenes

Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown, producers at Universal Pictures, independently heard about Peter Benchley's novel Jaws, and purchased the movie rights in 1973, before the book's publication, for approximately $175,000. Brown would later claim that had they read the book twice, they would never have made the film because they would have realized how difficult it would be to film. After first considering director John Sturges and Dick Richards (Zanuck and Brown later dropped Richard's from the project as they got irritated by Richards's habit of describing the shark as a whale), the producers were approached by Steven Spielberg for the job; having just directed The Sugarland Express for the duo, Spielberg noticed their copy of the still-unpublished Benchley novel, and after reading it was immediately captivated. Universal signed Spielberg to direct in June 1973.

Spielberg wanted to stay with the novel's basic plot, while omitting Benchley's many subplots, including the novel's adulterous affair between Ellen Brody (Lorraine Gray) and Matt Hooper. Author Benchly himself wrote three drafts of the script, before Spielberg starting including the contributions of other screenwriters, notably Howard Sackler, Carl Gottlieb, Matthew Robbins and Hal Barwood, and John Milius (with only Carl Gottlieb and Peter Benchly being credited). Benchley would later describe his contribution to the finished film as "the storyline and the ocean stuff – basically, the mechanics". The first actors cast were Lorraine Gary, the wife of then-president of Universal Sid Sheinberg, as Ellen Brody, and Murray Hamilton as the mayor of Amity Island. Roy Scheider became interested in the project after overhearing Spielberg at a party talk with a screenwriter about having the shark jump up onto a boat and was later cast as Brody. With only nine days before the start of production, neither Quint nor Hooper had been cast. Zanuck and Brown had just finished working with Robert Shaw on The Sting, and suggested him to Spielberg (he had originally wanted Lee Marvin or Sterling Hayden) for the role of Quint, and Spielberg's friend George Lucas suggested Richard Dreyfuss (whom he had directed in American Graffiti) for the part of Matt Hooper.

And then there was the creation of the mechanical shark, affectionately nicknamed "Bruce", after Spielberg's lawyer Bruce Ramer. Three full-size pneumatically powered prop sharks were soon made under the supervision of art director Joe Alves; a "sea-sled shark", a full-body prop with its belly missing that was towed with a 300 feet line, and two "platform sharks", one that moved from camera-left to -right (with its hidden left side exposing an array of pneumatic hoses), and an opposite model with its right flank uncovered (the models required 14 operators to control all of the moving parts!). But when filming began, a whole host of mechanical problems started to occur; pneumatic hoses taking on salt water, frames fracturing due to water resistance, corroding skin, and electrolysis. Due to frequent malfunctioning of the sharks, Spielberg later calculated that during the 12-hour daily work schedule, on average only four hours were actually spent filming.

With shooting at sea leading to many delays - and a costly budget overrun - Spielberg shot many scenes so that the shark was only hinted at. For example, for much of the shark hunt, its location is indicated by the floating yellow barrels. In a later interview, Spielberg declared, "The shark not working was a godsend. It made me become more like Alfred Hitchcock than like Ray Harryhausen." Mechanical problems, sea-sickness and sun stroke weren't the only problems on set. Robert Shaw reportedly could not stand Richard Dreyfuss and they argued all the time, although it did result in some good tension between their characters Hooper and Quint. Shaw's trouble with alcohol was also a frequent source of tension during filming. There was another incident when the Orca actually began to sink! Spielberg yelled over his bullhorn for the support boats to resuce the actors, while sound recordist John R. Carter, already up to his knees in water on the sinking Orca, held his Nagra (tape recorder) up over his head and screamed, "Fuck the actors, save the sound department!". Jaws finally wrapped on October 6, 1974, going 104 days over schedule!

Spielberg than began the arduous six-month editing process with Verna Fields. Fields, who rarely had material to work with during filming, expertly inter-cut footage of "Bruce" with real underwater shark footage shot by divers Ron and Valerie Taylor, and crafted the classic "Indianapolis" scene; the question of who deserves the most credit for actually writing Quint's monologue about the Indianapolis has caused controversy, with Spielberg ultimately stating that it was a collaboration between Sackler, Milius, and actor Robert Shaw. Meanwhile, John Williams composed the film's score. The main "shark" theme, a simple alternating pattern of two notes—variously identified as "E and F" or "F and F sharp" would later terrify audiences and became a classic piece of suspense music, synonymous with approaching danger. Spielberg later said that without Williams's score the film would have been only half as successful, and according to Williams it jump-started his career.

The glowing audience response to a rough cut of the film at two test screenings (one in Dallas, the other in Long Beach), encouraged studio's plan to debut Jaws at hundreds of cinemas simultaneously. At the time, wide openings were associated with movies of doubtful quality (employed to diminish the effect of negative reviews and word of mouth), and the studio's national television marketing campaign yielded a release method virtually unheard-of at the time. The results paid off, and when Jaws opened across North America on 464 screens, and was subsequently expanded to nearly 700 theaters on July 25, and on August 15 to more than 950, eventually grossing a record-breaking $123.1 million!

Critics also praised the film, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it "a sensationally effective action picture, a scary thriller that works all the better because it's populated with characters that have been developed into human beings". Writing for New York magazine, Judith Crist described the film as "an exhilarating adventure entertainment of the highest order" and complimented its acting and "extraordinary technical achievements". Jaws was, however, not without its detractors. Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "It's a measure of how the film operates that not once do we feel particular sympathy for any of the shark's victims. ... In the best films, characters are revealed in terms of the action. In movies like Jaws, characters are simply functions of the action ... like stage hands who move props around and deliver information when it's necessary". Jaws would later win three Academy Awards for Best Film Editing (for Verna Fields, which was the last film she edited), Best Original Dramatic Score for Williams, and Best Sound (Robert Hoyt, Roger Heman, Earl Madery and John Carter). It was also nominated for Best Picture, losing to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and Spielberg was not even nominated as Best Director - something Spielberg greatly resented.

In the years since its release, Jaws has frequently been cited by film critics and industry professionals as one of the greatest movies of all time. It was number 48 on American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Movies, a list of the greatest American films of all time compiled in 1998. Roy Scheider's line "You're gonna need a bigger boat" 35th on a list of top 100 movie quotes, Williams's score at sixth on a list of 100 Years of Film Scores, and the film as second on a list of 100 most thrilling films, behind only Psycho. In 2001, the United States Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry as a "culturally significant" motion picture. It would also serve as a springboard for a long running franchise - Jaws 2 being released three years later, Jaws 3-D in 1983 and Jaws: The Revenge in 1987.

But none the sequels would compare to the success of Steven Spielberg's original masterpiece, which still to this day, continues to terrify audiences worldwide, and made entire generations hesitate before going swimming in the moonlight!