CELEBRATING THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE JAWS PHENOMENON

Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss

Roger Crow visits the real Amity Island, and looks back on Jaws, Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster which changed cinema forever in 1975…

“T hat looks like a .45,” remarks a holidaying copper from Blighty. I’m on honeymoon with the new Mrs Crow, sat on a tourist bus which will take us around Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts’ most sought-after island. There’s a hole in the window; the spider-web glass fracture may have been caused by a .45 bullet, as fellow traveller Neville, the cop, suggests. Who knows? I do know that as a Jaws fan for decades, being in one of the most privileged regions of the US is a dream come true. We’re on ‘Amity’, home of one of the most famous thrillers in history.

The locals could have embraced the enduring passion for Jaws with merch, but I don’t spot a single item to tie in with Steven Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster. There are no posters, or toy sharks. Not even the sound of John Williams’ iconic theme playing as muzak somewhere. But then again, the locals also rejected the usual chain of global fast food and coffee shop stores, and being associated with fictional shark attacks obviously isn’t a great tourism draw.

Unlike the millions who flocked to see Jaws in the summer of 1975, I was late to the party, waiting until ITV screened the UK première one Thursday night in October 1981. Even in those pre-home video days with adverts, the movie grabbed me like a 25-foot Great White, and didn’t let go. So where had Jaws come from, how was it made, and why did it become so massive? To answer that first question, let’s go back to June 1971.

Clockwise from this image: Susan Backline’s death at the beginning of the movie; the Mayor doesn’t want the beaches closed; Alexander “Alex” Maxwell Kintner meets a grim end as Roy Scheider looks on; Jaws author Peter Benchley’s cameo as a news reporter

THE NOVEL

While the Rolling Stones and the Carpenters were storming the US charts, and Steven Spielberg was helming TV movie Duel, author Peter Benchley delivered a four-page outline of a potential novel to US publishing house Doubleday. Like bait on a hook, they bit, but the company wanted more before they fully committed.

Benchley signed up to deliver the first four chapters by mid-April 1972; that eventually paved the way for the final book in January 1973. The money wasn’t great; Benchley was down to his last few hundred dollars by the time he handed over the finished book, but what happened next changed his life.

The Jaws novel became a sensation, and there was a Hollywood feeding frenzy over the movie rights. Step forward producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown. Piping hot from The Sting, they knew a potential hit when they read it. Though the novel would go through some changes in the transition from book to screen (more of which later), the ‘men vs shark’ tale was a compelling read. That’s if they could get it on screen. While Benchley and Carl Gottlieb (who also played Meadows in the film) worked on the screenplay, getting the right actors to do the story justice was as crucial as the script.