JAWS was released in 1975. I might be dating myself by saying that my mother would not let me see the Jaws movies when it came out because she thought it was too scary and bloody for an eleven year old. I guess that would have put me around the 6th grade. In any event, JAWS was a big hit back then. Of course, I have seen it many times after I became older along with a lot of other 70s movies I wasn’t allowed to see. I had never seen JAWS on a cinema screen though,, so it was a real treat to see it in the theater on the first ever National Cinema Day.
Jaws was actually based on a novel written by Peter Benchley. The film was shot mostly on location in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts and directed by Steven Spielberg. If you know anything about Jaws, you know that the sharks were all mechanical, but the audience only saw the shark occasionally, which was a solution for all the issues the crew had with getting the mechanical sharks to work properly. One of the most iconic parts of the movie is the music composed by John Williams. Every time the shark is near, the tell-tale music would play: Duuuuh-dum…Duuuuuh-dum…dumdum..dumdum..dumdum.dumdumdumdum.
The plot is fairly simple, really. A beach town sheriff, played by Roy Scheider, leads the investigation of some shark attacks and threatens to shut down the beach in the middle of the tourist season. The mayor and other city leaders erroneously allow the beaches to stay open after a young woman is obviously attacked by a shark. The shark attacks again, but this time it is when the beaches are full of people for the 4th of July. This time a boy is killed. The sheriff calls in a marine biologist played by Richard Dreyfuss (he looked really young in this movie) and a professional shark hunter played by Robert Shaw., for assistance to hunt down and kill the great white shark.
Historically, Jaws was the highest grossing film of all time until Star Wars entered the scene in 1977. These two movies set the stage for modern cinema. Jaws was followed by three sequels, none of which were directed by Steven Spielberg and were not derived from a novel. They were individually scripted. The Lbrary of Congress has preserved Jaws on the National Film Registry for its important role in movie history.
If you have never seen Jaws before, take the opportunity to see it on the big screen. It is very entertaining. Even if you saw it back in the day when it first came out, take the opportunity to see it on the big screen once again. I give it 5 out of 5 stars.
See my review for Bullet Train here. See the review of the Jurassic World movie here..
2 thoughts to “Review: The Original Jaws Re-Release”