Jaws turns 40 !!

Posted on June 23, 2015 by Armand in Cinema // 0 Comments

…daaaaaaaaaaaaaaa dum…daaaa dum daaaa dum!

It’s hard to believe that Jaws turned 40 on June 20th! Not to mention a few theaters around the US have shown the movie again on the big screen for the first time since the 70s and 80s! A few of us here at PCU will bring you our memories of our first time being exposed to the movie but before that, a little bit of background:

3 fast facts you probably didn’t know about Jaws

1. Jaws was THE movie that ushered in the era of the summer blockbuster. It even paved the way for Star Wars, Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, Superman the Movie, Cannonball Run and more.

2. Speaking of Superman, if you thought Christopher Reeve was an unknown when he took on his role, Roy Scheider was as well when he took on Martin Brody even though he earned an Oscar nod for his supporting role in The French Connection.

3. The LA Times recently their review of Jaws…and it wasn’t well received.

Harry C.

My memory is that I remember seeing this in 1975 when this was on the big screen and I sometimes wonder if my mom’s intent was to scar me before the age of 10 with some of the movies I had seen! Even though the movie had the desired effect on me (Side note: My family often took trips to the New Jersey shore back then) of really not liking the ocean for awhile, it was one of my favorite movies and still is. What made this movie so masterful, I realized years later, is that Spielberg never really showed the monster that haunted our dreams of course until close to the end which is probably why my favorite scene of course when Brody first sees the shark and utters the most famous line, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat…” I remember jumping in the movie theater as well! Yet somehow the guy getting his leg bitten off didn’t phase me as much. Also, I remembered that this was my first exposure to John Williams and his music, as iconic it was, before again…Star Wars. Lastly…I maybe one of few who will freely admit that I liked Jaws 2 as well. The ones after that, not so much.

So, here are some memories from some of the Review Brew as they talk about Jaws and we got something special at the end!!

John Amenta

I honestly don’t remember the first time I saw Jaws. What I can remember is that after that initial viewing I was hooked. I received a VHS copy around the age of eight or nine, and for several years, I watched Jaws once a month, without fail. I still watch it at least yearly, and if it’s on TV, I will leave it on. Not only is it easily one of the scariest films ever, it is the exact beginning of what we know as the summer blockbuster. This year I turn forty years old, but more importantly to me Jaws does too. Happy Birthday Bruce, thanks for making me afraid to be in swimming pools.

Adam Frey

I don’t remember how old I was when I first saw Jaws. I was probably a pre-teen and caught it on a UHF station one night in the 1980s, letting myself watch it on one of those nights where my parents either weren’t home or weren’t paying attention. The thing that stuck with me most was that scene where the guy’s leg falls to the ocean floor. I can hardly remember most of the movie (I think I had to completely rewatch it as an adult to understand it), but that leg and the blood trailing behind it will forever be etched in my brain.

Another movie from around that time is Alligator, which is basically Jaws again, but with an alligator instead of a shark, and in a city instead of the ocean. Otherwise, I think it’s pretty much the same plot, except dumber, because this gator is super huge. It’s got a pretty similar scene to the Jaws “leg scene,” where some guy in the water gets both his legs munched off by the gator and he’s pulled from the water legless. Man, that’s a stupid movie. I doubt anybody will be doing an Alligator 40th anniversary celebration.

Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

And…from one of our fans, Shane Bowler

My mother and her sister, my Aunt, went to the drive in to see it when it was released. They used to play a kids cartoon or a family friendly movie early at the drive ins those days and then the feature film later. My mom put my sister and I, age two, to sleep in the back seat of the car before the movie started. At the end when Quint goes sliding into Bruce’s mouth my mother said she heard a little voice say “Dat fish is gonna eat dat man”. It was me. I was sitting in the back seat, wide awake, had watched the whole thing. It’s been my favorite film my entire life.

Now I have a Jaws screening in my backyard every summer; I was obsessed with sharks as a kid. Did every book report or project on sharks and work for the only company in the world that dedicates an entire week to sharks, because of that whack shit my mom did to me when I was two! (Aitch sez: You too Shane????)