Jaws (1975) on Netflix
A great white shark attacks swimmers off Amity Island, and police chief Martin Brody wants the beaches closed. Mayor Larry Vaughn refuses, since the summer season is the town's livelihood.
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- Rotten Tomatoes97%
Trailer
Plot summary
Amity Island lives off its summer visitors, and the season is about to begin when a young woman swimming at night is attacked in the water. Her remains wash ashore, and the coroner calls it a shark attack. Police chief Martin Brody moves to close the beaches, but Mayor Larry Vaughn, watching the town's income, has the death recorded as a boating accident and keeps the sand open. Brody scans the shoreline while families swim. When a boy on a raft is taken in front of a crowd, the town finally admits a shark is there, a bounty goes up, and boats crowd the docks. Oceanographer Matt Hooper arrives to examine the first victim's remains; local fisherman Quint offers to kill the animal for a price.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Jaws (1975)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Jaws was the first major motion picture shot on the ocean. Its shoot went far over budget, with the budget growing from $4 million to $9 million and effects costs reaching $3 million because of problems with the mechanical sharks.
- The malfunctioning sharks pushed Steven Spielberg to suggest the shark rather than show it, a restraint he later called a godsend that made him more like Alfred Hitchcock than Ray Harryhausen.
- Footage of a real great white attacking a cage, shot by Ron and Valerie Taylor off South Australia, was so good that the script was changed to let Hooper escape and save Richard Dreyfuss's character.
- The role of Quint was offered to Lee Marvin and Sterling Hayden, both of whom passed, before Robert Shaw took it at the urging of his wife, actress Mary Ure, and his secretary.
- The role of Brody was offered to Robert Duvall, who wanted only to play Quint and was deemed too young, while Charlton Heston was passed over as too grand for a small-town police chief.
- Spielberg wanted Jon Voight for Hooper, and Timothy Bottoms, Jan-Michael Vincent, Joel Grey and Jeff Bridges were considered before George Lucas suggested Richard Dreyfuss, who first passed and then changed his mind.
- Spielberg paid $3,000 of his own money to reshoot the scene where Hooper finds Ben Gardner's body after Universal refused to fund it. The underwater shot used editor Verna Fields's swimming pool, with powdered milk added to make the water murky.
- The film's two-note shark theme was played on tuba by Tommy Johnson, and when Williams first played it for Spielberg on a piano, Spielberg laughed, thinking it was a joke.
