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Jun 20 • 50 tweets • 28 min read Twitter logo

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JAWS was released 48 years ago today. Regarded the first summer blockbuster and landmark of Hollywood, the making of story is so crazy it begs the question of how it was ever made…

A THREAD

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Jaws started life as a novel by author Peter Benchley. Published in 1974 it had quickly became a best-seller. Universal bought the rights and gave it to David Brown and Richard D. Zanuck to produce.

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The first person Universal hired as director was Dick Richards - a world renowned photographer who’d directed The Culpepper Cattle Co. He was sacked when he kept calling the shark a whale in studio meetings about Jaws.

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Michael Winner was considered to take over before Zanuck and Brown recommended the director of their latest film, The Sugarland Express - a young, up-and-coming filmmaker called Steven Spielberg.

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Just 27 years old, Spielberg had mostly directed TV movies, including Duel, he had also directed the pilot episode of Columbo. Jaws was just Spielberg’s second feature film.

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Peter Benchley had adapted his own script over 3 drafts and, burned out, refused to write more. Spielberg thought the script needed major changes. He brought in Howard Sackler noting the similarities between Sackler’s Great White Hope and their own great white shark

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Spielberg was still unhappy with the script, thinking it lacked humour. He brought in Carl Gottlieb who had worked on sitcom The Odd Couple. Gottlieb said Spielberg gave him one note on the screenplay: “Eviscerate it!”

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When Universal asked Peter Benchley who he wanted to play the three main characters in Jaws he said: Paul Newman, Robert Redford and Steve McQueen. The studio balked at the idea – and potential cost – and told Benchley that was never going to happen.

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Charlton Heston wanted the part of Chief Martin Brody but Spielberg thought he was too big a name, saying, “The shark wouldn’t last past the first act.” Robert Duvall and Gene Hackman were also considered as possible Brodys. Spielberg wasn’t convinced, though.

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Spielberg met Roy Scheider at a Hollywood party a few weeks before shooting. He told Scheider the plot of the movie and said he didn’t have a lead. Scheider loved the story and said “well, what about me?”

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In casting Matt Hooper, the studio wanted Jan Michael Vincent as he was like Hooper in the book. However, Spielberg’s pal George Lucas had worked with Richard Dreyfuss on American Graffiti and recommended him. Dreyfuss said no though as he didn’t fancy filming at sea.

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Then Dreyfuss’ new film The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz came out. Dreyfuss thought he was awful in it and worried about getting another job. He called Spielberg and asked if he could still be in Jaws.

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After shooting wrapped, Dreyfuss did an interview where he called Jaws a disaster and said he was awful in the film. Now, though, he says Jaws is the film he’s most proud of.

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Spielberg’s first choice to play Quint was Lee Marvin but he said he’d rather go fishing for real. Robert Mitchum turned it down. Oliver Reed turned it down. And Sterling Hayden turned it down because he owed the govt millions in taxes so would’ve been working for free.

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Spielberg cast Robert Shaw as Quint. He spent 2 weeks tailing a real Martha’s Vineyard fisherman called Craig Kingsbury and took some dialogue from Kingsbury like the “blue gills and tommy cotts” line. Craig Kingsbury has a cameo in the film, below.

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Shaw had some input into some of his dialogue. It was Shaw’s idea to sing Spanish Ladies and also came up with the Mary Lee limerick after seeing it on a tombstone in Ireland.

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The introduction to Quint was supposed to take place in a cinema. We would see Quint watching Moby Dick and laughing at how unrealistic it is. Gregory Peck, who starred in Moby Dick, denied Spielberg the rights to the movie as he thought his performance was terrible.

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Shaw and Dreyfuss did not get on. Shaw would call Dreyfuss fat and challenged him to jump off the top of the Orca (about 90ft). Dreyfuss was going to do it, until Spielberg got wind of the stunt and told Dreyfuss, “not in my movie, you don’t!”

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Another time, when Shaw was drinking between takes on the Orca, Dreyfuss snatched the shot glass from Shaw’s hand, and threw it into the ocean. “Things got ugly,” said Spielberg.

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Susan Backlinie plays Chrissie Watkins, the swimmer killed in the opening sequence. She was a swimwear model and recommended to Spielberg by Zanuck after he saw her in a magazine. Spielberg said, “yeah, but can she act?” and Zanuck replied “I don’t know, but look at her!”

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Shooting the scene was hard work for Backlinie. She was attached to underwater ropes and 5 people pulled her left and right. Spielberg wasn’t happy with Backlinie’s screams so they re-recorded her in post and poured water down her throat to get the gargled sound we hear.

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Lee Fierro played Mrs Kintner. She wasn’t an actress and was unsure how to fake a slap. Filming the below scene she slapped Scheider 17 times – at one point she knocked his specs off. Fierro got asked by fans to slap her so often she said she wouldn’t do it any more.

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Both writers have cameos in the film. Peter Benchley plays the newscaster reporting on the beach. Carl Gottlieb is the mayor’s right hand man – we see him in the ferry scene.

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The DP was Bill Butler. Spielberg wanted to shoot on the waterline so Butler invented a box to hold the camera that allowed that. He also created a device to keep water spots from hitting the camera lens.

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In 2003 Butler received the ASC Lifetime Achievement Award and Spielberg wrote him a letter saying “You were the calm before, during and after every storm on the set of Jaws.” Our SnapShot compilation showcases the stunning visuals from the film.

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Not every shot was carried out by Butler. To film the cage scene, Spielberg hired shark experts Ron and Valerie Taylor. They filmed 4’11” stuntman Carl Rizzo in a small cage to make the shark look bigger.

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Filming the cage scene, one of the sharks got entangled in the cage and started thrashing about. Rizzo wasn’t in the cage at the time but if he had been he would’ve drowned. Spielberg used the real shark footage in the film. And Rizzo refused to go back in the cage.

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Through production, Spielberg and Gottlieb worked on the script every night and made huge changes from the book. In the film, Mayor Vaughn wants the beaches to remain open for financial reasons. In the book, he was influenced by the Mafia to keep the beaches open.

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In Benchley’s novel, Hooper has an affair with Brody’s wife and is killed by the shark when he goes down in the cage. Spielberg thought this plot thread unnecessary – and made Hooper unlikeable – so removed it from the movie.

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Benchley’s ending had the shark die from exhaustion and succumb to its wounds. Spielberg thought this uncinematic and had the shark explode when Brody shoots a gas cannister in its mouth. Benchley was furious, argued with Spielberg and stormed off the set.

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The production was plagued with issues. Terrible weather and unforeseen problems with filming at sea caused many delays. And at one point, the Orca sank, delaying things further.

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The shark was designed by effects artists Bob Mattey and Joe Alves. They created 3 sharks but didn’t test in salt water. They regularly had to be retrieved from the sea bed after breaking down. In frustration, Spielberg referred to the shark as “the great white turd.”

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The shark had another name on the set too. Spielberg named him after his lawyer, Bruce Ramer, and the cast and crew referred to the mechanical shark as “Bruce” throughout the shoot.

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Because of the issues, Spielberg had to tell the story without the shark. This is why the shark doesn’t appear until 1hr 21 mins in. Originally, it was supposed to appear in the first scene. Spielberg said “I started making a Hitchcock movie instead of a Godzilla movie.”

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Due to all of these issues, the 65-day shooting schedule overran to 157 days and the budget ballooned from $4million to $9million. Spielberg called it, “the hardest production I’ve ever worked on. I had nightmares for a lot of years.”
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One of the standout moments is the dolly zoom shot into Brody. Spielberg took it from Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. It was created by Hitchcock’s camera operator, Irmin Roberts. The zoom effect is now commonly known as “the Jaws shot.”

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The scene where Brody and his son, Sean, pull faceswasn’t in the script. Between takes, Roy Scheider and Jay Mello (Sean) started making faces at one another. Spielberg saw it and – always a fan of a father/son relationship – said, “get the cameras rolling again”.

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At this time, Spielberg wanted to direct a Bond movie and actually made pitches to Cubby Broccoli on two occasions. He even went so far as to make a subtle nod to Bond in Jaws. Check out the license plate number in the below scene…

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Spielberg had the idea form the famous jump scare after filming wrapped so had to pay $3000 for it himself. It was filmed in editor Verna Fields’ outdoor pool. To make the water murky, they poured in a vat of milk. And Ben Gardner’s head is a mould of Craig Kingsbury.

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The vandalised Amity Island poster references the deaths to that point. It shows a blonde girl (Chrissie Watkins), on a lilo (Alex Kintner), and we see a fishing boat (Ben Gardener). The model for the poster was the girlfriend of director Brian De Palma at the time.

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John Williams composed the legendary music. The first time played the “dun-dun” theme to Spielberg, Spielberg thought it was a joke. He later called the Jaws score “John Williams’ greatest contribution to any of my films.”

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The USS Indianapolis monologue wasn’t in the book. It was based on a real event that the US Navy had recently declassified. The idea of the speech was conceived by writer Howard Sackler, as he thought Quint needed a backstory.

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Sackler wrote a speech that was under a page. John Milius then wrote a 10-page draft. Robert Shaw read the Milius speech and liked it, but thought it too long. Shaw wrote a third draft, trimming Milius’ speech down to 4 pages. This is the monologue we see in the film.

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Shaw first performed the speech drunk but kept messing it up. The next day, he apologised to Spielberg, came back sober, and delivered the below…

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Prior to 1975, movies didn’t advertise on TV - Jaws changed that. Movies used to open in one theater in LA and then roll out across the rest of the country. Jaws opened simultaneously in 465 cinemas - unheard of at the time, but now standard practice.

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Movie posters weren’t a new nothing but the Jaws poster is special. Designed by Roger Kastel, he paid model Alison Maher $35 to pose. The famous image evolved across a few Kastel concepts.

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To say Jaws was a success is an understatement. Costing $9m, it grossed $470m – more than treble The Godfather’s record. It was the highest grossing film of all time, and first to make $100m domestically.

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