The Jaws Thread

[Mel O'Drama]

I'm watching Jaws and Jaws 2 tonight.

That's such a coincidence, Jessie. I had my annual Jaws screening last night.

Enjoy your Jaws double-bill. I hope you'll let us know how you enjoy them!!


It's such a great film. One of the few that never gets old and stands up to repeated viewings. Robert Shaw's performance really leapt off the screen last night as a truly wonderful one.

While I was watching last night I was thinking how incredibly well made it is. I know it's all been said before many times, but it really is. So many events are crammed into that first hour, and every single moment drives the film forward. It feels so much shorter than its two hour running time.


I'm skipping the sequels this year. Instead I plan to re-watch The Shark Is Still Working.

Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be watching The Shallows, which I still haven't seen yet. And I might re-watch The Reef.

Loved Ellen and Martin Brody

That's a really cute picture of Lorraine and such an iconic backdrop, too.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Mayor Larry Vaughn is such a jerk

He is, but he's a loveable old jerk. I love his blazers, his coiffed hair and his lairy grin.

And his gift for understatement:

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Shari Rhodes's casting is just wonderful, down to the smallest role.

In no particular order, let's hear it for the islanders...






Mrs Kintner

You knew there was a shark out there. You knew it was dangerous. But you let people go swimming anyway?!

Mrs Taft

I don't think that's funny. I don't think that's funny at all.

Polly (and her printing)

It seems that the nine year olds from the school have been karate-ing the picket fences.

Bad Hat Harry

We know all about you, Chief. You don't go in the water at all, do you?

The Argumentative Fisherman

A whaaaaaa?!

(I think this guy is my favourite. His line never fails to make me laugh.)





The Fin Kids

He made me do it. He talked me into it.

Sean Brody

Estuary Victim

Hey - are you guys OK over there?

Ben Gardner

When we get them silly bastards down in that rock pile, it'll be some fun. They'll wish their fathers had never met their mothers when they start takin' their bottoms out and slamming into them rocks, boy.

Hendricks

What's the matter with my printing?

Woman Artist

Sh... shark!! Shark! It's going into the pond...!

Tom Cassidy

She must've drowned. Look - I reported it to you, didn't I?!

The Pier Guys

Can we go home now?

Meadows

Technically you need a civic ordinance or a resolution by a board of selectives...

The Medical Examiner

I was wrong. We'll have to amend our reports.

 

[Sarah]

Amazing posts. Absolutely love Jaws and never tire of it.

I have to say though - Mrs Kintner is very old looking don't you think? And had she just come from the funeral? Hence the veil?

And the pier guys - the creaking of the pier coupled with the iconic music makes this scene even scarier!!!

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Mrs Kintner is very old looking don't you think?

I really like how weary she looks.

I think, too, that she looks so much older in the slapping scene than she does on the beach, which always brings home to me the humanity of the film. Like the trauma of losing her young son has aged her overnight.

She would have been around 45 when she made Jaws, so I buy her having a son about Alex's age. If anything, she probably looked a bit younger in Jaws: The Revenge when she'd gained a little weight which seemed to suit her.

There's a great interview with Lee Fierro where she talks about everything from auditioning and casting through shooting (she slapped Roy Scheider seventeen times in one day) to meeting her screen son quarter of a century later. Here it is:

And had she just come from the funeral? Hence the veil?

I think she was taking her grief very seriously. She probably wore that veil around Amity for months.

She talked a little about wearing the black in the interview above (at about 22 minutes):

Back in 1974 people weren't wearing black. Mostly, people don't wear black to funerals nowadays. But Steve had this set idea that it should be black and I think he was right for both the shark and me to be black. [pauses] That's supposed to be funny, guys.

The thing I find most chilling about that scene is the Tiger Shark hanging in the background which, at the time, was assumed to have killed her son.

And the pier guys - the creaking of the pier coupled with the iconic music makes this scene even scarier!!!

It's very chilling. Those guys got a hard time in The Jaws Log. Apparently they were hopeless at following even the simplest of directions. It's a while since I read it so I may not be remembering correctly, but I think I recall reading that Spielberg took great relish in personally pulling the lever to break the dock apart and dunk them.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Last night I watched The Shark Is Still Working: The Impact & Legacy Of Jaws.

It's only the second time I've viewed it. The first was three or four years ago when I first got Blu Ray (Jaws was the first BD I bought, just as it was the first DVD).

Such a great documentary. It's easy to tell it was made with complete love by people who know and revere the film. The minutiae covered is a fan's dream. All those little details that rewatches of the film have brought into the consciousness are covered. Right down to the interview with the actor who said "A whaaaa?!"

It's quite poignant, too, to see the interviews with Roy Scheider, Peter Benchley, Percy Rodrigues and David Brown who all died before the film got an official release. Adding to that poignancy, the documentary is also narrated by Scheider while Rodrigues narrates the trailer, just as he did the original Jaws trailers.

A must watch for Jaws fans.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Today, for no particular reason, I've found myself troubled by Ben Gardner's head. It's the one thing in the film that I don't buy.

Don't get me wrong, I'll happily believe that the shark somehow devoured the rest of his body while leaving the head. I'll even go along with the notion that the head somehow ended up bobbing about in the boat's hull, just waiting for Hooper to find it.

But what really bothers me is how Hooper's find is not mentioned again, even though it's pretty significant evidence that something sinister is going on. I mean: even if it wasn't definitive evidence of a shark attacking people, a severed head is never good news, is it?

Think about it. Hooper is a scientist interested in evidence. He knew where the head was. It would have to be retrieved. It would need to be reported. And the Chief Of Police was there at the scene. Did Hooper even tell Martin about it? There's nothing to conclusively suggest either way, but why wouldn't he? Even if he was panicked by finding it, there's no good reason why - after climbing aboard and calming down - he wouldn't simply tell Martin the reason he re-emerged looking terrified. Anything else is just too contrived.

In the next scene, where Hooper and Brody are having a conversation with Larry Vaughn, neither of them mentions the head. They're trying to prevent Larry opening the beaches for the Fourth Of July, so this information may have been slightly useful, don't you think? They even discuss the tooth he found at the scene but when Larry asks Hooper if he still has it, Hooper just casually mutters that he lost the tooth. And that's it! Wouldn't one of them mention that he dropped the tooth because he had the crap frightened out of him by a disembodied head?! Call me old fashioned, but the head of a local fisherman they all knew seems at least as important as the tooth he lost.

 

[Sarah]

@Mel O'Drama What was the reason that Mike didn't stay with Kate, but married the almost as but not quite as annoying Carla?

Was it because he moved to the Bahamas?

Or that she made him want to commit himself?

 

[Sarah]

Think it's also worth mentioning that the great Roy Scheider passed away 10 years ago on February 10th:

 

[Mel O'Drama]

What was the reason that Mike didn't stay with Kate, but married the almost as but not quite as annoying Carla?

I think Kathryn suffered from pogonophobia.

Think it's also worth mentioning that the great Roy Scheider passed away 10 years ago on February 10th

Ten years. It's frightening how quickly that time has gone. It seems far more recent.

Roy having a key role in The Shark Is Still Working has been a factor in making it seem like he was alive more recently. Because it didn't get released until years after his death, it feels like he was still alive all that time.

 

[Sarah]

I think Kathryn suffered from pogonophobia.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

I just completely get this. On so many levels...

 

[Sarah]

I love this one:

 

[Mel O'Drama]

A serious, intellectual question for Jaws fans...

Did Michael Brody want coffee flavoured ice cream? Or just coffee?

I've long thought he was asking Ellen to bring him in a flask of coffee to drink, but as time goes on I'm less sure. After all, isn't coffee a little inappropriate for someone of Michael's age?

 

[kenneth]

OK so last night I gave Jaws 3 another outing. Yikes. I don't know why when I was younger this one was my favourite (briefly). It's maybe because it was shiny. But Dear God I cannot tolerate Bess Armstrong. I just can't do it. OK I love that she loves the dolphins but all the happy happy happy happy stuff and her constant gesticulation really grates on me.

The most hilarious thing about Jaws 3 is Calvin (some damn shark's mutha!)

Poor Lili's bitch mother. Spoiler alert.

 

[darkshadows38]

my nephew loves these movies, i did to at his age he's 6. i do own the 1st one on blu-ray but i haven't watched it yet to be honest. you know what we need on this site? a section for books!

 

[Mel O'Drama]

you know what we need on this site? a section for books!

Well, we do have this thread.

 

[darkshadows38]

oh than how the hell didn't i find it before?thanks

 

[Mel O'Drama]

I'm just re-reading Peter Benchley's original novel for the umpteenth time.

The film is so ingrained in my mind that despite Benchley's descriptions of, say, Brody having a bit of a pot belly or Hendricks being a somewhat nasty old 'Nam vet, they all end up looking pretty much as they do in the film: So Brody, Ellen, Vaughn, Meadows, Quint and Mrs Kintner all end up looking like Scheider, Gary, Murray, Gottlieb, Shaw, Fierro.

There is one major exception. The character of Hooper is so different that he always ends up recast.

Benchley describes him as a somewhat arrogant monied preppy womaniser with an athletic physique, blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. In my visuals, I can't help casting book Hooper with Peter Benchley himself.

Not that Benchley necessarily has all the attributes described above. But physically he's very close to the description in the book.

Did Michael Brody want coffee flavoured ice cream? Or just coffee?

While I remembered the gazpacho and rare butterfly lamb of the first two courses, I'd forgotten that Ellen served coffee ice cream for dessert at the tense dinner party she hosted. Served in a pool of crème de cacao. I wonder if Michael's request was a little nod to this.

 

[Swami]

Not sure if any of you have seen this or not.

Swami