50 Years Ago Today, It Came to the Theaters, (and scared the crap out of some).

That was filmed near us. I remember taking the ferry to Martha's Vineyard and seeing a big raft with a huge shark on it about halfway across. We had no idea what we were looking at until the movie came out. There was a great picture of a local townie crawling out of the shark's mouth with a tool in his mouth. He was a diver and an explosives expert they hired to rig the shark to explode which is what he is doing in the photo. It's funny because back then White sharks were pretty rare in these parts. Now Cape Cod has the largest population of White Sharks on the U.S. east coast. We have a huge seal population to feed them. Rather than scare tourists away it attracts them.

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I too saw it on its first run in '75. There was a lot of hubbub and scuttlebutt about it at the time. When a surgeon told me the film kind of repulsed her, that gave me pause to reflect. But I saw it anyway. It's one of a small number of horror films I've seen.

Unfortunately ever since I saw the picture I could never again go into ocean water over waist deep. My imagination sees a shark coming for me... :oops:
I used to love to swim way out, but I can't pull the trigger anymore.
 
I guess I am strange because I don't consider Jaws a "horror" film. Yes, there are scary parts to the movie but I was drawn into the feel of the movie. I enjoyed the interaction of the characters and the atmosphere of the small New England town. I have watched the movie many times and it never gets old for me . I still laugh at the scene of the two old men who go to the dock and try to capture the shark with the chain and hooks. And I still get chills when Robert Shaw has his scene describing the events after the sinking of the Indianapolis.

There have been a few movies in my lifetime that are better than Jaws (Godfather 1 and 2 come to mind) but Jaws remains my favorite movie that came out in my lifetime (Casablanca is still my favorite though). I was in my teens when it came out so I was into all the pop culture references that occurred because of the movie.

 
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My husband and I watched it again last night, on Peacock. It was a fun re-watch and I even jumped and screamed (a very little) at the scene where SPOILER ALERT the decomposing head pops out of the boat, underwater.

We felt the same way about it last night as we did on seeing it (not together) in the 70's, which was that it was a great movie, but they shouldn't have shown the shark as close up as they did in final scenes.

Still, loved it.
 
Yes, I saw the movie the 1st time in '75, it was intense, John Williams score made it even more so
I remember having trouble sleeping for a couple of nights
I read the book by Peter Benchly,movie was better
 
moviequeen1 said:
Yes, I saw the movie the 1st time in '75, it was intense, John Williams score made it even more so
I remember having trouble sleeping for a couple of nights
I read the book by Peter Benchly,movie was better
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I read the book too, and I remember enjoying it, but do not now remember enough to say whether the book or movie were better for me.

Anyone else read the book?
 
Medusa said:
I read the book too, and I remember enjoying it, but do not now remember enough to say whether the book or movie were better for me.

Anyone else read the book?
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I've read the book, @Medusa, and I agree with @moviequeen1 that the movie was better. It's one of the handful of instances in which I think the movie is better than the book, although I genuinely enjoyed the book.
 
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