Jaws is a landmark film for several reasons. It was the first summer blockbuster and changed the way movies are released from that moment forward. It launched the career of Steven Spielberg who had only directed one feature film up to that point. Spielberg was not the studio’s first choice. He was only 26 when he got the job, after the studio fired Dick Richards (The Culpepper Cattle Co). None of the primary cast members were first choices either. Spielberg wanted Lee Marvin for Quint but he wasn’t interested. He offered the part to Sterling Hayden who also passed. Jon Voight, Jeff Bridges and Timothy Bottoms were under consideration for Hooper. Robert Duvall, Gene Hackman and Charlton Heston were under consideration for Chief Brody.

I’m glad that Spielberg assembled the cast that we got. Roy Scheider was the perfect choice for Brody. A solid, dependable type of guy without being an action hero. George Lucas suggested Richard Dreyfuss for Hooper, having worked with him on American Graffiti. I’m not sure who suggested Robert Shaw but he almost passed on the role because he didn’t like the book. His wife and secretary talked him into doing it.

I read Peter Benchley’s novel Jaws in junior high. I can see why Shaw didn’t like it, Benchley was kind of a cheesy writer. The school library edition was censored and removed all the sex scenes (in the book, Hooper has an affair with Ellen Brody) but I had my own copy with all the naughty bits. I remember the library edition put a swimsuit on the woman on the cover (in that iconic image of the woman swimming on the surface with the shark surging straight up from below). But I digress.

My point is, the movie is better than the book. It’s kind of a miracle, considering how troubled the production was. ‘Bruce’ the mechanical shark malfunctioned all the time. There’s a reason why you don’t see the shark for the first hour of the film. It’s better that way, building tension around the unseen menace. But it wasn’t planned that way. Spielberg insisted on filming the water scenes at sea and not in a wave tank where he could control the environment. He wanted Bruce to be larger than life (at 25 feet) and not use miniatures. He created a lot of problems for himself. The screenplay was being rewritten in real time on the set. Robert Shaw was bullying Richard Dreyfuss on the set. Method acting? Maybe. The onscreen tension between Quint and Hooper is palpable. The movie went way over time and way over budget.

Out of all that chaos emerged the perfect summer popcorn movie. It’s thrilling and scary. It has great characters and great dialog (some of it improvised by the actors). So many quotable lines.

You’re gonna need a bigger boat.

There is some dispute over the authorship of the famous monologue that Quint delivers in the final act, while they are out on the Orca hunting the shark. Playwright Howard Sackler (who worked uncredited on the film) came up with the idea that Quint was a survivor of the USS Indianapolis, the ship that delivered the bomb to the Pacific during WW2. The Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese torpedo in 1945. Of the 890 crewmen who survived the torpedo, only 316 survived the four days it took for rescuers to arrive. The rest died of dehydration, exposure, and shark attacks. It was the greatest loss of life in US Navy history. According to Spielberg, John Milius wrote Quint’s speech and dictated it to Spielberg over the phone. But Jaws screenwriter Carl Gottlieb disputes this. He says Robert Shaw took all of their ideas and came up with his own version (Shaw was a published novelist and playwright as well as an actor). Whoever wrote the speech, it’s a brilliant scene, brilliantly performed by Shaw.

It’s been almost 50 years since Jaws. It’s easy to forget how impactful this movie was. Swimming in the ocean took on a scarier aspect after Jaws. I grew up in a beach town and I was much more aware of shadows under the water after seeing Jaws. Beach tourism declined in the aftermath of this film. On the other hand, tourism to Martha’s Vineyard (where the film was shot) skyrocketed after Jaws. People love to visit movie locations.

Jaws impacted the culture in other ways as well. The film’s main theme is at least as well known as Ennio Morricone’s iconic The Good, The Bad & The Ugly theme and as ubiquitously repurposed. The shark fin gliding through the water is a much used trope now, but I’m pretty sure Jaws invented it. If you can cite an earlier instance of the shark fin of doom, please let me know in the comments.