One of the Scariest Movies of All Time

I caught a documentary last night on the making of Jaws. The movie scared both my brother and I to death as children. We wouldn’t even get near the deep end of the pool! Jaws is a true classic, but not just because of the shark, but the acting sequences. One of the best of the film is when Quint tells of the sinking of the Indianapolis, and the men being surrounded by sharks. I decided to watch the film again tonight and still love the film as much if not more than ever. Here is some trivia about the film. What are your thoughts?

–Steven Spielberg wanted Sterling Hayden for the role of Quint. Hayden, however, was in trouble with the Internal Revenue Service for unpaid tax. All Hayden’s income from acting was subject to a levy by the IRS, so there was an attempt to circumvent that: Hayden was also a writer, so one idea was to pay him union scale for his acting, and buy a story from him (his literary income wasn’t subject to levy) for a large sum. It was concluded that the IRS would see through this scheme, so Robert Shaw was cast instead.

–A scene filmed, but not included in the final release, was during the second beach attack. Brody’s son, swimming in the “shallow area” is frozen in terror as the shark approaches him; the man saves his life by pushing the boy out of the way at the last minute and putting himself in the path of the shark. There is a shot of the bloody, dying man’s upper body being dragged briefly along in the shark’s jaws before being pulled underwater. Steven Spielberg shot the scene, but decided it was far too gruesome and didn’t include it. The DVD release shows the scene being shot, blood and all, during the The Making of Steven Spielberg’s ‘Jaws’ (1995) (V) documentary, but it is not included in the “Deleted Footage” or “Outtakes” sections of the DVD.

–According to Steven Spielberg in the DVD ‘making of’ documentary, his original idea for introducing Quint was to have him in the local movie theater watching Moby Dick (1956) starring Gregory Peck. Quint was to be sitting at the back of the theater and laughing so loudly at the absurd special effects of the whale that he drove the other viewers to exit the theater, leaving Quint by himself. Spielberg says that the only thing that stopped him from doing that scene was Gregory Peck. Peck held part of the rights to that movie and when Spielberg approached him for permission, Peck turned him down. Not because he thought it was a bad idea to use the film that way, but because Peck didn’t like his performance in Moby Dick (1956) and didn’t want the film seen again.

–Charlton Heston was considered for the role of Chief Brody. Jeff Bridges, Timothy Bottoms, Jon Voight and Jan-Michael Vincent were considered for the role of Hooper.

–Victoria Principal was considered for the role of Ellen Brody.

–Charlton Heston was so annoyed with being rejected for the role of Brody that he later made disparaging comments about Steven Spielberg and vowed never to work with him. He later turned down Spielberg’s offer of the role of General Stilwell in 1941 (1979).

–Quint’s tale of the USS Indianapolis was conceived by playwright Howard Sackler, lengthened by screenwriter John Milius and rewritten by Robert Shaw following a disagreement between screenwriters Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb. Shaw presented his text, and Benchley and Gottlieb agreed that this was exactly what was needed.

–Quint’s boathouse set was built in Martha’s Vineyard on an abandoned lot. The city council made the production crew sign an agreement to demolish it after filming and replace everything exactly as it had been – right down to the litter.

–Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, was used as Amity Island primarily because even 12 miles out to sea, the sandy bottom was only 30 feet down, allowing the mechanical shark to function. Residents were paid $64 to scream and run across the beach as extras.

–In the actual Jersey Beach shark attacks of 1916 (which Hooper mentions in the film), the sequence of attacks is similar to that of the film: a swimmer in the surf; a dog; a boy; and the leg of a man in a tidal slough.

–Robert Shaw could not stand Richard Dreyfuss and they argued all the time, which resulted in some good tension between Hooper and Quint.

–To create the sound of a drowning woman during post-production, Susan Backlinie was positioned, head upturned, in front of a microphone, while water from above was poured down into her throat.

–There’s a scene on the beach where Brody tells a guy “That’s some bad hat, Harry.” The same line is used by “Bad Hat Harry Productions” at the very end of the TV show “House M.D.” (2004). There’s even an animated shark that swims by.

–The color red is never used in any clothes or any backgrounds as Spielberg wanted it to be only seen as blood.

–Though his affair with Brody’s wife was left out of the film, Hooper’s death was actually in the script. The plan was to have a dummy representing Hooper placed in a cage underwater, and a New Zealand-based couple would entice an actual shark to attack the cage and tear the dummy apart. They could never provoke the shark properly. Ultimately, the shark did attack and destroy the cage, but there was one problem: the Hooper dummy wasn’t inside at the time. As this was the best footage they had, Steven Spielberg decided to use it, and allow Hooper to escape the shark.