I had the pleasure of watching this with Tom Pratt, and since this is his favorite film, I got plenty of info during.
Amity
We start off with a group of young people around a fire, and Chrissie and I am speculating Cassidy decide to take a drunken frolic to the beach and skinny dip. Boom, the first and only pair of boobs. He is a drunk, stumbling idiot, really reminded me of myself while drunk. He passes out on the sand, she swims and gets bit and killed by our favorite shark, the OG, Jaws.
We meet Chief Brody (Roy Scheider), and his woman, Ellen, and their son, Michael. He gets a call about the girl. He interviews Cassidy. The body just coincidentally washes ashore at the time. She’s in a net and is crawling with crabs. Also, there are some crustaceans walking on her. HA!
Brody needs to get some No Swimming signs up. Brody is alerted that some boy scouts are out getting their swimming merit badge. Larry Vaughn, the mayor of Amity, is trying to get Brody to not stop the swimming because this is a tourist area, so lots of lost money if no swimming.
Alex Kitner wants to go swimming some more, his mom allows it. After a lot of talky talk with Brody monitoring things as much as he could. Alex gets bit and killed. His mom is slightly pissed. Time for a town meeting. The beach is to be closed for 24 hours. Lots of people bitching and moaning then nails down a chalkboard. Here we meet Quint (Robert Shaw), a fucking treat. There is a $3,000 bounty for capturing this shark. He wants $10,000 for the head, the tail, the whole damn thing.
Charlie and another dude are using a roast to entice the shark. It worked, but it took out the dock that Charlie was on and caused the dock to pull away, but Charlie managed to get back safely. Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) is the shark expert that Brody called in. We see a bunch of fishermen going out to try to make the 3 grand.
Hooper inspects the body of Chrissie for bite marks, all that stuff. Some of the guys come back with a shark. Hooper determines that there’s a 1 in 100 chance of it being the right one. The only way to confirm it is to cut open the shark.
Hooper stops by to Brody’s with wine. Brody just pours wine in a tall glass. Well, Brody agrees to cut the shark open, no bodies. Vaughn does not wish to close the beaches. They do have people on alert while Larry insists on keeping the beaches open, and tells the media that they found and killed the shark. LIAR! Everybody is out swimming, and there is a false scare of some guys with a fake fin. Enjoyable. After the scare, there actually is the shark though. Lots of panic. Michael was in the water, scared, so now it’s personal. Larry is apologetic to Brody. Larry agrees to pay Quint.
Now this movie picks up. Quint is gonna get a case of apricot brandy. “Here’s to swimming with bow-legged women.” Quint says that Hooper has soft hands from counting money all day, not working man hands. Quint’s hat is fantastic. Hooper making faces cracks me up. We are out to sea, and Quint is bossy, and Hooper is the wheelman, and Brody is the assistant so to speak.
Brody finally got to see Jaws. “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” That’s a classic, well-known line. They determine it’s about 25 feet, 3 tons. Quint gets his harpoon ready. He shoots it, and the rope is attached to a yellow barrel, easier to track the shark.
At night, the guys are drinking, and Quint and Hooper start showing off their previous injuries. This is my favorite scene easily. They drink to their leg injuries. Hooper shows his chest, and Quint says “You’re wearing a sweater” thanks to the chest hair. Fucking great. Quint tells a tale of the USS Indianapolis. Japanese submarine nailed 2 torpedoes after they delivered the bomb for Hiroshima. 11,000 men are out in the water, and then sharks come after them. Then they sing.
Show me the way to go home I'm tired and I want to go to bed I had a little drink about an hour ago And it went right to my head Where ever I may roam On land or sea or foam You will always hear me singing this song Show me the way to go home
I loved this part, by far my favorite. Then the boat gets rammed and the boat starts taking on water, there’s a fire. It’s chaos briefly, but the men work together. They see the shark again as the get the barrel with the rope. Brody is trying to call the coast guard, and Quint destroys the radio. Brody is livid. Well, another shot with the harpoon. Nice. They follow the shark, well the barrel. John Williams’ soundtrack in full effect. They get close enough, and other harpoon shot, Brody shoots it with his pistol. The shark has 2 barrels and still went down.
Jaws is eating his way through the lines, so Quint with another harpoon shot. They are trying to make it back to shore, Quint is just killing his motor at this point. Hooped wants to put his shark cage together, and jab it if he gets a chance, jab him with this tranquilizing spear. I like this idea. So they lower him, Jaws creeps from behind, hits the cage, he immediately drops the spear. Jaws is wrecking the cage. Hooper escapes and hides even lower.to get his spear. They go to reel up the cage, it’s wrecked, and no Hooper. Now the infamous scene of Jaws biting and devouring the ship. Brody tries to save Quint from sliding, but Quint slides into Jaws’ big ass mouth. The ship is sinking and now after Brody. Damn.
Brody bops it in the nose with an oxygen tank and then feeds it to Jaws. Good idea. The ship is sinking fast. Brody has the gun and the long pole. He is stabbing and Jaws like crazy. Brody is trying to shoot the tank in the shark’s mouth. finally, on his 3rd shot, nailed it. Big boom. Brody is holding on to the wreckage, and Hooper makes his way up, and the guys have a good laugh. Hooper looks around for Quint, and Brody just shakes his head and says no. The guys get with 2 barrels and start kicking their way to shore.
End film
What a treat! Long before the Blair Witch was keeping people from camping, there was a bad boy keeping people out of the ocean. This is one of the best films of the ’70s. The acting is superb by and large. Quint was my favorite, but Hooper, Larry Vaughn, and Brody all hold a place in my heart. There are classic scenes and lines that are timeless. The soundtrack was spot on and iconic. Spielberg did a hell of a job with this one. Kudos sir.
Final rating: 8.0
All the pictures used in this blog are for review purposes. They are the property of:
- Zanuck/Brown Productions (as A Zanuck/Brown Production)
- Universal Pictures (uncredited)
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