50th anniversary of Jaws

RIP Chrissie

I'm sorry, OP. I must disagree with you on Lorraine Gary. Talk about your nepo careers. Her husband was a big shot and she was a god awful actress.

An Oscar...? HAHAHAHA.

I saw it here. The trailer had been showing the previous months and it was brilliant. They just showed the image with *that* music under it and finally Coming This Summer. It was an eagerly anticipated movie.

As has been stated here many times, it’s so much better than the book. The shark is front and center in the film and we have none of the bad subplots.

Scarier than a million Exorcists. I could stay away from demonically possessed children.

But Mom and Dad loved vacationing at the beach.

“Everyone in the water!”

I was young when it was released and was afraid to even swim in a lake or pond after seeing it.

Everyone has that first movie that scared the bejeezus out of them. This was mine. And I BEGGED my parents to let me watch it when it was first aired on TV.

It's a great movie, but fuck you Bruce. Fuck you.

I fell in love with Robert Shaw in this. His Indianapolis monologue is one of the best things ever put on film.

Holy mackerel, I watched Jaws and Jaws 2 back to back on Tubi yesterday. Was shocked to see OP’s thread as they’re both still fresh on my mind. Had no idea it was the 50th anniversary (must be why Tubi just added them).

With so much home entertainment to choose from today, it’s hard for films and TV shows to keep my undivided attention. But with Jaws I was locked in. It’s such a great film with a perfect cast.

I was born over a decade after the movie came out so I spent my life watching films with more advanced special effects before I ever watched Jaws, and til this day that shark remains terrifying. This is one of those movies that makes me envy everyone in 1975 who got to experience the thrill and hype and anticipation then finally watched one of the most epic flicks in an air conditioned theater with some popcorn to beat the summer heat.

My all time favorite movie. Saw it when I was five at home and loved it. The part with Charlie and his buddy and the holiday roast and the busted jetty is what had my heart pounding!

A whaaaaaat?

I don't think that's funny at all.

Fantastic movie, has not aged at all. I was 11 when it came out and it was such an intense experience to be in a dark theater, especially the scenes in the hull of the boat where it felt like you were IN the boat with them.

Lee Fiero should have been nominated. Her one small scene changes the entire movie and it's an interesting moment because Scheider tried to close the beach but the Mayor wouldn't let him, yet the mother thought it was his fault.

To me, there may be better movies that were released in the summer (Nashville, the same year, for one) but Jaws will always be the quintessential “summer movie.”

My two friends were 14 and 13 when the movie was made on Martha's Vineyard, and they showed up every day to watch it being filmed (the lived on MV all summer long). A few times, they were used as 'extras' on the beach scenes. The 14 year old went on to study films (he's a film archivist now) because watching 'Jaws' being made left such an impression on him. He always said, 'Who knew I was watching one of the greatest movies of all time being made ?'

When we get them silly bastards down in that rock pile, it'll be some fun, they'll wish their fathers had never met their mothers. When they start takin' their bottoms out and slamming into them rocks, boy!

It’s a great movie and that story about The Indianapolis terrified me. I thought there was no way it could be real, but it IS REAL!

And I still scream “GO! SWIM!” When the shark attacks Richard Dreyfus in that shark cage. Scared the shit out of me.

Without Jaws there would be no...

[quote] To me, there may be better movies that were released in the summer (Nashville, the same year, for one)

How pretentious!

Saw it the weekend it opened; back in the olden days when you had go stand in a long line to buy your tickets.

Went back the very next weekend to wait in another long line to see it again.

I just watched it (yet again) last fall and it still holds up as a perfect, crowd-pleasing movie.

Saw it within a week of its release. I was 16. I was really shocked when the kid got eaten.

Martha’s Vineyard still to this day commemorates the movie as though it were filmed last year. I guess anything to get rid of the stench of Chappaquiddick.

The Fourth of July is supposed to be a week away but in some scenes, like when Richard Dreyfuss first arrives in Amity, the trees are bare and everyone is bundled up in winter clothes.

R3 That's where I saw it, too! I went with my family on the July 4th holiday, then after we saw Jaws, we drove up Colorado Boulevard to The Continental Theater and saw The Hindenburg.

R9 I saw it in the theater when I was 13 years old and I vividly remember the scene where Richard Dreyfus is diving underwater and looking through the sunken boat and the dead guy's head pops out. Everybody in the theater, including me, let out a collective scream.

[QUOTE] And I still scream “GO! SWIM!” When the shark attacks Richard Dreyfus in that shark cage. Scared the shit out of me.

I always forget the exact moment when the shark pops up after Hooper goes underwater. I’ve seen this movie about 20 times and still it shocked the hell out of me last week when the shark just nonchalantly came out of nowhere and bumped the cage. 😱

R9

It was THRILLING! I was nine and we all watched it over and over that summer, became obsessed with sharks, and yes, was afraid to swim in my own pool. My Halloween costume that year was Jaws.

My small town had a theatre that I absolutely adored but was torn down. I also watched Star Wars over and over there. So much fun.

[QUOTE] Saw it when I was five at home and loved it.

What was wrong with your parents, r10?

My mom was at work and my dad didn’t give a shit. He was a permissive parent. I watched all the R rated action and horror movies I could! I grew up on them. Alien, Predator, Terminator, Robocop, Hellraiser, all favorites.

He actually took me, my brother, and our friend to see Jaws 4 in theatres a few months after I saw Jaws, and I was pretty let down about the roaring shark.

Sure, SS went on to make other great movies. But there is something about certain artists that emerges before there are any expectations. From that freedom comes true genius.

I grew up in a small town in rural North Carolina. My mother and I went to Charlotte (50 miles away) for shopping at least once a month. We usually caught a movie to make a day of it.

I would have been about 11 when Jaws came out in July 1975. The movie was getting lots of buzz, so we decided to make that our movie one Wednesday when we went to Charlotte shopping, about a week after it has come out. We went to a 1 p.m. showing of Jaws and the theater was PACKED. Not an empty seat in the house. For a 1 p.m. screening!

We were used to a few dozen people in the theatre for an afternoon screening. Never before had we experienced a full theater on a Wednesday afternoon! Especially a 1 p.m. showing!

This was back in the days when a movie only played in one or two theaters in a city.

But the movie was fantastic. Seeing it in a packed theater with 400+ people, everyone screaming at the scary scenes, just made the whole thing even better. Definitely a communal experience.

When we left, there was a giant line of people waiting for the next showing. We were thankful we'd chosen the 1 p.m. show and didn't have to wait in that line.

Great movie. The beginning of the summer blockbuster! I've seen it multiple times since then, both on TV and on the big screen, and it continually holds up !

[quote] What was wrong with your parents,

Jaws is rated PG. They didn't have PG13 back then, although on the poster under the PG it said "some scenes may be too intense for younger children" which I believe was pretty unusual.

R31

I think because he didn’t yet have full carte blanche, he had to come up with ideas on the fly - turns out, he was really, really good at that. Not every director is but he’s so creative and has such a good sense of humor that it really worked with Jaws. To me, it’s a superlative movie.

Famed director Steven Spielberg has filmed a new, special introduction to his landmark 1975 film “Jaws,” which will air over three hours on June 20 at 8 p.m. ET on NBC — the exact 50th anniversary date of when it was released. The NBC screening and Spielberg’s introduction are just some of the plans NBCUniversal has to mark the anniversary.

It made me afraid of my parents' waterbed for a long time.

Seeing Jaws on the big screen for the first time changed my life. I was 12 years old in the summer of ‘75. It blew my little sheltered mind and created a life-long movie addiction.

It almost didn’t get made. The shoot went way over budget, took far longer than expected, the mechanical shark shorted out in salt water (they only tested it in fresh water), and they almost lost the sound recordings. Lew Wasserman, the head of Universal, wanted it shut down but Syd Sheinberg saved the movie, saved Spielberg’s career (it was only his third film and his first big budget production), saved Universal, and introduced the summer blockbuster.