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Jaws at 50: the first Summer Blockbuster.

  • 20-06-2025 08:43AM
    #1
    bnt
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,163 ✭✭✭✭


    Jaws was released 50 years ago today. It was based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name, but to me it's a great illustration of how to make a great adaptation.

    Benchley wrote the early screenplays, but Spielberg could see they needed more, and got other writers involved too. He brought in comedy writer Carl Gottlieb to inject some humour in to the script, John Milius worked on dialogue, and Robert Shaw (Quint) worked on his own dialogue too. Howard Sackler worked on characters e.g, making Brody (Roy Scheider) a city boy who was afraid of water. Does that mean that Jaws was "written by committee"? No, because Spielberg knew what he wanted and made sure he got it.

    So we can thank him for starting the Summer Blockbuster era, with its sequels and all that stuff, though the dumbing down required to make films like Armageddon was probably not his fault ..!

    You are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is afraid it has found. I am so glad that you have never done anything, never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself! Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.

    ―Oscar Wilde predicting Social Media, in The Picture of Dorian Gray



Comments

  • #2
    NIMAN
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,377 ✭✭✭✭NIMAN


    Brings back so many memories of that time.

    What a film.



  • #3
    OU812
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,094 ✭✭✭OU812


    saw it in the cinema a couple of years ago. Absolutely incredible. Seen it a couple of times but that was the first time on the big screen.

    There was a line of about eight kids a couple of rows in front of me. Teenagers. They were really rowdy, phones on, talking, messing, bouncing around during the ads trailers and start.

    Until Christie Watkins was attacked. Then I heard a single “oh ****”. And they were quiet and sat still for the entire thing.



  • #4
    OU812
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,094 ✭✭✭OU812


    incidentally, did you know Jaws was the FIRST blockbuster?

    It was a cultural phenomenon, people came out of it and joined the queue to see it again. The queues were longer than the block so they were called blockbusters.

    Universal created 464 prints for an opening of 464 screens they were totally taken by surprise by the demand and created 536 more to give it 1,000 screens across the US after opening weekend. French Connection 2 and several other films were pulled to make room for it (FC2 had only opened).

    The theme (da dum) is E-F-E-F and the half step between the two notes are interpreted by the brain as naturally unsettling or tense. It was written to mimic a panicked rising heartbeat. John Williams is quoted as saying Spielberg laughed when he first heard it, didn’t like it and thought he made a mistake hiring him.

    IMG_5738.jpeg

    And finally. One of the two real life brothers who play the prank with the shark fin, grew up to be a real Chief Brody, becoming Chief of Police in Martha’s Vinyard where the movie was shot.



  • #5
    loyatemu
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,714 ✭✭✭✭loyatemu


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123563373#Comment_123563373

    underrated if anything - it should be in the Sight and Sound poll top 10 IMO, it's that good. I think some people don't give it it's due because it's a blockbuster and has sequels etc. Spielberg's best by a mile.



  • #6
    bnt
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,163 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    I just noticed, there is a screening of Jaws tonight at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, with the National Symphony Orchestra Ireland providing a live soundtrack. There are still seats available, though it is a little pricey.

    https://www.nch.ie/all-events-listing/jaws-in-concert/

    You are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is afraid it has found. I am so glad that you have never done anything, never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself! Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.

    ―Oscar Wilde predicting Social Media, in The Picture of Dorian Gray



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  • #7
    Decuc500
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,277 ✭✭✭Decuc500


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123563532#Comment_123563532

    It didn't even make the top 100. Spielberg never gets his due as he's considered 'populist' but Jaws is a technically superb film. I'd compare it to Vertigo in that regard.



  • #8
    Pinkman
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 506 ✭✭✭Pinkman


    Would have been cool to see that in the national concert hall. Does anyone know if it's getting a proper re-release for the 50th anniversary? Very odd no plans in stella or lighthouse.

    National geographic have a new doc about it coming out on Disney + next month.

    https://youtu.be/jrBN9zcQAGw?si=viSCdyfRH9cbkTGV


  • #9
    walshb
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 58,939 ✭✭✭✭walshb


    One greatest movies and entertainment experiences of all time.



  • #10
    heavydemon
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32 ✭heavydemon


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123563903#Comment_123563903

    Just saw this the link has expired, do you know how much the tickets were?



  • #11
    gidget
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,058 ✭✭✭gidget


    It's on ITV4 at the moment



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  • #12
    johnny_ultimate
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 30,713 CMod ✭✭✭✭johnny_ultimate


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123565825#Comment_123565825

    A range of prices as usual, but I got tickets today for €35 (after it had previously sold out). Stall seats seemed to be a tenner more expensive than that.

    Good fun - tbh you're often just so involved in the film you forget the orchestra is there, other than in moments of particularly high drama when the score kicks into overdrive. They really gave the main theme absolute socks, and a short reprise after the credits inevitably brought the house down. There was a nice musical transition into and out of the interval too as the crew head out to sea for the final hunt.



  • #13
    ~Rebel~
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33,916 ✭✭✭✭~Rebel~


    Going to see it at the Hollywood Bowl with the LA philharmonic doing the score on the 5th - can’t wait!



  • #14
    Heckler
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,368 ✭✭✭Heckler


    Went to see "The Shark is Broken" in the Gaiety a while back. Written, directed and acted by Robert Shaws son Ian playing his dad. About what Shaw, Schneider and Dreyfuss got up to for a few days when Bruce broke down. Ian Shaw is visually and vocally the absolute bulb off his father. The other two were great and for me the actor playing Dreyfuss was the standout. Highly entertaining. Very very funny.



  • #15
    Foggy Jew
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 823 ✭✭✭Foggy Jew


    Aaaah the summer of 75. The young Foggy Jew had gotten a Summer job in Switzers of Grafton Street. McDonalds had just opened their first outlet in Ireland on the same street. There would be queues of people right round to Nassau street to buy a burger in an egg box. 14 year old Foggy spent her first weeks wages on a pair of Levis & a fake army shirt, thinking herself only gorgeous. A hottie fron the dispatch dept in Switzers asked me out on a date. We went to see Jaws. An excellent choice of movie for a first date. At all the scary bits I screeched & was rewarded with a strong masculine arm around my shoulders. Then we held hands as he walked me down to my bus stop to get home. I was 14. That Summer, the weather was great. For the first time in my life, I had money of my own. That scary Jaws music doesn’t scare me one bit. I hear the Jaws music now & I think of a Summer 50 yars ago when I was 14, independently wealthy (pay was approx £12 per werk) and youthfully good looking enough to be asked out by the cutest lad in the organisation. No mortgage, credit cards, debts, husband, children, health issues. All i had to worry about was what to spend next week’s pay check on. Good times. Good times.

    It's the bally ballyness of it that makes it all seem so bally bally.



  • #16
    bnt
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,163 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    I went to the NCH too, it was pretty excellent. I did need the subtitles at times, but that wasn’t really a problem.

    Steven Spielberg has recorded an introduction to the upcoming Nat Geo making-of documentary, for its premiere on Martha’s Vineyard:

    https://youtu.be/KnNTBlzhQ08

    You are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is afraid it has found. I am so glad that you have never done anything, never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself! Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.

    ―Oscar Wilde predicting Social Media, in The Picture of Dorian Gray



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