Fast-paced and fiery, this masterfully crafted creature thriller a set against the idyllic background of Amity Island, a small community whose main business is its beaches. During the warm summer, as tourists enjoy the golden sands and cool water of the beaches, new Sheriff Martin Brody discovers the remains of a shark attack victim, his first inclination is to close the beaches to swimmers. This doesn't sit well with Mayor Larry Vaughn and several of the local businessmen.
Brody backs down, to his regret, as that weekend a young boy is killed by the predator. The dead boy's mother puts out a bounty on the shark and Amity is soon swamped with amateur hunters and fisherman hoping to cash in on the reward.
A local fisherman with much experience hunting sharks, Quint, offers to hunt down the creature for a hefty fee. Soon Quint, Brody and Matt Hooper from the Oceanographic Institute are at sea hunting the Great White shark. As Brody succinctly surmises after their first encounter with the creature, they're going to need a bigger boat.
Cast: Lorraine Gary, Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider
Crew: Steven Spielberg (Director), Bill Butler (Director of Photography), John Williams (Music Director)
Release Dates: 20 Jun 1975 (United States)
Tagline: Amity Island had everything. Clear skies. Gentle surf. Warm water. People flocked there every summer. It was the perfect feeding ground
Did you know? Steven Spielberg played first clarinet for the beach scene. Read More
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Actress
Actor
Actor
Supporting Actor
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Supporting Actress
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Supporting Actress
Supporting Actor
Direction
Director
First Assistant Director
Second Assistant Director
Writers
Screenplay Writer
Camera and Electrical
Director of Photography
Music
Music Director
Editorial
Editor
Film Type:
Feature
Language:
English
Colour Info:
Color
Sound Mix:
Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Surround 7.1, DTS, DTS-HD 5.1, Mono, Dolby Digital
Camera:
Panavision Panaflex, ARRIFLEX 35 III
Frame Rate:
24 fps
Aspect Ratio:
2.35:1
Stereoscopy:
No
Taglines:
Amity Island had everything. Clear skies. Gentle surf. Warm water. People flocked there every summer. It was the perfect feeding ground
Do you like fish? Well, he likes you too...
Don't go in the water
If you forgot what terror was like...its back
It's as if God created The Devil, and gave him Jaws
See it before you go swimming.
See what you missed the first time...after you closed your eyes
She was the first.
The Nation's No.1 Best-Selling Book now the Screen's Super-Thriller
The terrifying motion picture from the terrifying No. 1 best seller
When beaches open this summer, you will be taken by Jaws
You yell shark, and we got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July
You'll never go in the water again!
Do you like fish? Well, he likes you too...
Don't go in the water
If you forgot what terror was like...its back
It's as if God created The Devil, and gave him Jaws
See it before you go swimming.
See what you missed the first time...after you closed your eyes
She was the first.
The Nation's No.1 Best-Selling Book now the Screen's Super-Thriller
The terrifying motion picture from the terrifying No. 1 best seller
When beaches open this summer, you will be taken by Jaws
You yell shark, and we got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July
You'll never go in the water again!
Movie Connection(s):
Followed by: Jaws 2 (English)
Followed by: Jaws 4 (Tamil)
Referenced in: The Darkest Hour (English)
Referenced in: Piranha 3D (Telugu)
Referenced in: Piranha 3D (Hindi)
Referenced in: Piranha 3D (Tamil)
Referenced in: Piranha 3D (English)
Dubbed into: Jaws (Portuguese)
Followed by: Jaws 4 (Tamil)
Referenced in: The Darkest Hour (English)
Referenced in: Piranha 3D (Telugu)
Referenced in: Piranha 3D (Hindi)
Referenced in: Piranha 3D (Tamil)
Referenced in: Piranha 3D (English)
Dubbed into: Jaws (Portuguese)
Filming Locations:
Los Angeles, California
Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
Menemsha, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
Oak Bluffs, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
Sengekontacket Pond, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
Underwater, Santa Catalina Island, Channel Islands, California
Water Street, Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
American Legion Memorial Bridge, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
East Chop, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
Joseph Sylva State Beach, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
Coast, South Australia
Dangerous Reef, South Australia
Falmouth, Massachusetts
Main Street, Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
Southern Ocean, South Australia
Aquinnah, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
Menemsha, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
Oak Bluffs, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
Sengekontacket Pond, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
Underwater, Santa Catalina Island, Channel Islands, California
Water Street, Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
American Legion Memorial Bridge, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
East Chop, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
Joseph Sylva State Beach, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
Coast, South Australia
Dangerous Reef, South Australia
Falmouth, Massachusetts
Main Street, Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
Southern Ocean, South Australia
Aquinnah, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
Goofs:
Audio/Video Mismatch
As the shark passes the Orca and Chief Brody fires his gun at it, the second gun shot can be seen hitting the water before the gun fires it. It happens immediately following the cut after the first gunshot.
Audio/Video Mismatch
When Chrissie is attacked by the shark, her mouth doesn't match her screams in many shots of her.
Audio/Video Mismatch
When Quint hooks something "big" with the rod on the Orca, and we cut to a close-up of him, the line is heard running from the reel, but on the right-hand side of the screen you can see the line hanging loosely in the eyes of the rod.
Character Error
After Chrissy Watkins' remains were pulled out of the cabinet in that little pan, Hooper went on to record his findings of the remains. There is no way all of the remains he described into his tape recorder would fit into that little, shallow pan.
Character Error
As Brody argues with Mayor Vaughan about keeping the beaches closed over the Fourth of July, he states that five people were chewed up in the surf (in New Jersey) in five days, in 1916. In fact, it took place over a twelve-day period, and three of the victims were attacked in a tidal creek.
Character Error
In a deleted scene featured on the DVD, the boy playing the clarinet is told that a '3' reed should be softer than a '2'. Reeds get harder as they increase in number value.
Character Error
When Brody is in his office typing a coroner's report, he misspells "coroner" - he types "corner".
Character Error
When Chief Brody is talking to Larry Vaughan on the ferry, before he says "I appreciate it, I'm just reacting to what I was told," he calls him "Harry" instead of Larry.
Character Error
While killing time on the Orca, Brody is trying to learn to tie a bowline; he is reciting the method incorrectly.
Continuity
Hooper wears glasses (old fashioned rimless) throughout the film, but the temples (the part that goes from the glasses themselves to the ears) change from time to time, even within the same scene. Sometimes they are connected to the glass part of the frame at the top, and sometimes in the middle.
Continuity
In the "beach panic" sequence, many of the people running out of the water and past Chief Brody are obviously completely dry, despite having just run out of the water.
Continuity
The cleats that the shark pulls off the boat reappear.
Continuity
The sea frequently goes from choppy to calm, and the skies from sunny to hazy, as we cut back and forth between characters on the Orca.
Continuity
The word ORCA on the back of the boat continually changes from shot to shot varying from very rusty letters to shiny letters.
Continuity
There are five yellow barrels on the Orca. After they get the third barrel in the shark, Quint walks past the barrels with his harpoon gun and there are still three barrels left.
Continuity
When Brody attempts to make a mayday call on the radio, a liquor bottle is next to the radio. Then Quint comes in to smash the radio and there is a wine bottle next to the radio.
Continuity
When Chief Brody and Hooper tie the ropes to the stern cleats, Quint shoots a harpoon under the shark's mouth. When Hooper is in the shark cage, look at the shark's mouth when it passes by. There is no harpoon there.
Continuity
When Chrissy's body is found on the shore, it has been severely damaged by the shark attack, but is still mostly intact. When Ho
Continuity
When Hooper is gutting the Tiger shark, the order of things he pulls out does not match the order that, when they land at Brody's feet, as Hooper throws them towards him, and some things just appear at Brody's feet.
Continuity
When Jaws attacks Hooper's cage, there is live footage of a real Great White with a rope hanging from its mouth. This shark's mouth is clearly much smaller than Jaws' mouth when it attacks the boat moments later.
Continuity
When the Shark first approaches Hooper in the cage, the above water shot shows the barrels being towed through the water at great speed. However, underwater the shark passes Hooper at less than half the speed of the barrels, and the shark has no (barrel) lines attached.
As the shark passes the Orca and Chief Brody fires his gun at it, the second gun shot can be seen hitting the water before the gun fires it. It happens immediately following the cut after the first gunshot.
Audio/Video Mismatch
When Chrissie is attacked by the shark, her mouth doesn't match her screams in many shots of her.
Audio/Video Mismatch
When Quint hooks something "big" with the rod on the Orca, and we cut to a close-up of him, the line is heard running from the reel, but on the right-hand side of the screen you can see the line hanging loosely in the eyes of the rod.
Character Error
After Chrissy Watkins' remains were pulled out of the cabinet in that little pan, Hooper went on to record his findings of the remains. There is no way all of the remains he described into his tape recorder would fit into that little, shallow pan.
Character Error
As Brody argues with Mayor Vaughan about keeping the beaches closed over the Fourth of July, he states that five people were chewed up in the surf (in New Jersey) in five days, in 1916. In fact, it took place over a twelve-day period, and three of the victims were attacked in a tidal creek.
Character Error
In a deleted scene featured on the DVD, the boy playing the clarinet is told that a '3' reed should be softer than a '2'. Reeds get harder as they increase in number value.
Character Error
When Brody is in his office typing a coroner's report, he misspells "coroner" - he types "corner".
Character Error
When Chief Brody is talking to Larry Vaughan on the ferry, before he says "I appreciate it, I'm just reacting to what I was told," he calls him "Harry" instead of Larry.
Character Error
While killing time on the Orca, Brody is trying to learn to tie a bowline; he is reciting the method incorrectly.
Continuity
Hooper wears glasses (old fashioned rimless) throughout the film, but the temples (the part that goes from the glasses themselves to the ears) change from time to time, even within the same scene. Sometimes they are connected to the glass part of the frame at the top, and sometimes in the middle.
Continuity
In the "beach panic" sequence, many of the people running out of the water and past Chief Brody are obviously completely dry, despite having just run out of the water.
Continuity
The cleats that the shark pulls off the boat reappear.
Continuity
The sea frequently goes from choppy to calm, and the skies from sunny to hazy, as we cut back and forth between characters on the Orca.
Continuity
The word ORCA on the back of the boat continually changes from shot to shot varying from very rusty letters to shiny letters.
Continuity
There are five yellow barrels on the Orca. After they get the third barrel in the shark, Quint walks past the barrels with his harpoon gun and there are still three barrels left.
Continuity
When Brody attempts to make a mayday call on the radio, a liquor bottle is next to the radio. Then Quint comes in to smash the radio and there is a wine bottle next to the radio.
Continuity
When Chief Brody and Hooper tie the ropes to the stern cleats, Quint shoots a harpoon under the shark's mouth. When Hooper is in the shark cage, look at the shark's mouth when it passes by. There is no harpoon there.
Continuity
When Chrissy's body is found on the shore, it has been severely damaged by the shark attack, but is still mostly intact. When Ho
Continuity
When Hooper is gutting the Tiger shark, the order of things he pulls out does not match the order that, when they land at Brody's feet, as Hooper throws them towards him, and some things just appear at Brody's feet.
Continuity
When Jaws attacks Hooper's cage, there is live footage of a real Great White with a rope hanging from its mouth. This shark's mouth is clearly much smaller than Jaws' mouth when it attacks the boat moments later.
Continuity
When the Shark first approaches Hooper in the cage, the above water shot shows the barrels being towed through the water at great speed. However, underwater the shark passes Hooper at less than half the speed of the barrels, and the shark has no (barrel) lines attached.
Trivia:
According to Steven Spielberg, the prop arm looked too fake in the scene where Chrissie's remains are discovered, so instead they buried a female crew member in the sand with only her arm exposed.
According to writer Carl Gottlieb, the line "You're gonna need a bigger boat" was not scripted but improvised by Roy Scheider.
After the shark was built, it was never tested in the water, and when it was put in the water at Martha's Vineyard, it sank straight to the ocean floor. It took a team of divers to retrieve it.
Author Peter Benchley was thrown off the set after objecting to the climax.
Brody's dog in the movie was actually Steven Spielberg's real dog, Elmer.
During the display in which Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw compare battle scars, Roy Scheider lifts up his shirt to reveal an appendix incision. This is not a prosthetic, but Scheider's own scar.
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.
Preview audiences screamed when the head of a shark victim appears in the hole in the bottom of the boat. Director Steven Spielberg re-shot the scene in editor Verna Fields swimming pool because he wanted them to "scream louder".
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.
Roy Scheider stated in an interview that in the scene where Lee Fierro (Mrs. Kintner) smacks him in the face, she was actually hitting him. Apparently, the actress could not fake a slap and so the multiple takes were some of the "most painful" of his (Scheider's) acting career.
Several decades later, Lee Fierro, who plays Mrs. Kintner, walked into a seafood restaurant and noticed that the menu had an "Alex Kintner Sandwich". She commented that she had played his mother so many years ago. The owner of the restaurant ran out to meet her - none other than Jeffrey Voorhees, who had played her son. They hadn't seen each other since the original movie shoot.
Steven Spielberg named the shark "Bruce" after his lawyer.
Steven Spielberg played first clarinet for the beach scene.
The average summer tourist population of Martha's Vineyard before the film was released was approximately 5,000 people. After it came out, the population ballooned to 15,000.
The line "that's some bad hat, Harry", at 16:35, is the slogan for Bad Hat Harry Production Company. Their ad page features a cartoon rendition of Martin and Harry sitting by the beach, with a shark fin in the water in the background.
The mechanical shark spent most of the movie broken-down, and was unavailable for certain shots. This led Steven Spielberg to use the camera as the "shark", and film from the shark's point of view. Many think this added to the "chilling/haunting" quality in the final release saying that it would have made it too "cheesy" had they shown the shark as much as originally planned.
The tax problem Robert Shaw was facing was that if he spent more than a certain amount of time in the U.S. he would face a tax liability. To circumvent that, Shaw was flown to Canada on his days off.
There were two 300-pound weights attached to Susan Backlinie that were being tugged by two groups of crewmen on shore. One group would pull right, and the other would pull left. It took three days to film that sequence.
Three mechanical "Bruces" were made, each with specialized functions. One shark was open on the right side, one was open on the left side, and the third was fully skinned. Each shark cost approximately $250,000.
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.
To get the crabs to move in the scene with the arm part on beach, the property master poured some hot coffee on them.
When it was initially released in the summer 1975, over 67 million Americans went to see the movie, making it the first summer "blockbuster".
According to writer Carl Gottlieb, the line "You're gonna need a bigger boat" was not scripted but improvised by Roy Scheider.
After the shark was built, it was never tested in the water, and when it was put in the water at Martha's Vineyard, it sank straight to the ocean floor. It took a team of divers to retrieve it.
Author Peter Benchley was thrown off the set after objecting to the climax.
Brody's dog in the movie was actually Steven Spielberg's real dog, Elmer.
During the display in which Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw compare battle scars, Roy Scheider lifts up his shirt to reveal an appendix incision. This is not a prosthetic, but Scheider's own scar.
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.
Preview audiences screamed when the head of a shark victim appears in the hole in the bottom of the boat. Director Steven Spielberg re-shot the scene in editor Verna Fields swimming pool because he wanted them to "scream louder".
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.
Roy Scheider stated in an interview that in the scene where Lee Fierro (Mrs. Kintner) smacks him in the face, she was actually hitting him. Apparently, the actress could not fake a slap and so the multiple takes were some of the "most painful" of his (Scheider's) acting career.
Several decades later, Lee Fierro, who plays Mrs. Kintner, walked into a seafood restaurant and noticed that the menu had an "Alex Kintner Sandwich". She commented that she had played his mother so many years ago. The owner of the restaurant ran out to meet her - none other than Jeffrey Voorhees, who had played her son. They hadn't seen each other since the original movie shoot.
Steven Spielberg named the shark "Bruce" after his lawyer.
Steven Spielberg played first clarinet for the beach scene.
The average summer tourist population of Martha's Vineyard before the film was released was approximately 5,000 people. After it came out, the population ballooned to 15,000.
The line "that's some bad hat, Harry", at 16:35, is the slogan for Bad Hat Harry Production Company. Their ad page features a cartoon rendition of Martin and Harry sitting by the beach, with a shark fin in the water in the background.
The mechanical shark spent most of the movie broken-down, and was unavailable for certain shots. This led Steven Spielberg to use the camera as the "shark", and film from the shark's point of view. Many think this added to the "chilling/haunting" quality in the final release saying that it would have made it too "cheesy" had they shown the shark as much as originally planned.
The tax problem Robert Shaw was facing was that if he spent more than a certain amount of time in the U.S. he would face a tax liability. To circumvent that, Shaw was flown to Canada on his days off.
There were two 300-pound weights attached to Susan Backlinie that were being tugged by two groups of crewmen on shore. One group would pull right, and the other would pull left. It took three days to film that sequence.
Three mechanical "Bruces" were made, each with specialized functions. One shark was open on the right side, one was open on the left side, and the third was fully skinned. Each shark cost approximately $250,000.
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.
To get the crabs to move in the scene with the arm part on beach, the property master poured some hot coffee on them.
When it was initially released in the summer 1975, over 67 million Americans went to see the movie, making it the first summer "blockbuster".
