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“It is as if God created the Devil and gave him… Jaws.” – trailer for JAWS (1975). Steven Spielberg’s classic Universal horror film is considered one of Hollywood’s finest achievements in terror. The cast is phenomenal, a trio of actors that will never be equaled: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss. The Black Saint and Doc Rotten tackle another groovy horror film from the 1970s.
Decades of Horror 1970s
Episode 19 — Jaws (1975)
Part 2 w/ Bill Mulligan, Christopher G. Moore & Alan G. Kelly.
Doc Rotten is joined by three film makers to discuss the making, the challenges and the achievements of the timeless classic, JAWS. Join Doc and his friends Bill Mulligan, Christopher G. Moore and Alan G. Kelly as they relive the film recounting some of the best scenes in the film – some of the best scenes in cinema history. They discuss how the tension is built with camera angles, cinematography, composition and music. The scary scenes are dissected, Quint’s demise and Ben Gardner’s jump scare. Alan and Chris reveal how the “Vertigo” dolly shot was done to accent Sheriff Brody’s witnessing the death of the Kintner boy. And of course, no discussion of JAWS can go without mentioning the Indianapolis speech.
Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into her side, Chief. We was comin’ back from the island of Tinian to Leyte. We’d just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes.
Didn’t see the first shark for about a half-hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that in the water, Chief? You can tell by lookin’ from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn’t know, was that our bomb mission was so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn’t even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin’ by, so we formed ourselves into tight groups. It was sorta like you see in the calendars, you know the infantry squares in the old calendars like the Battle of Waterloo and the idea was the shark come to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin’ and hollerin’ and sometimes that shark he go away… but sometimes he wouldn’t go away.
Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn’t even seem to be livin’… ’til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then… ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin’. The ocean turns red, and despite all your poundin’ and your hollerin’ those sharks come in and… they rip you to pieces.
You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don’t know how many sharks there were, maybe a thousand. I do know how many men, they averaged six an hour. Thursday mornin’, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boson’s mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water, he was like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he’d been bitten in half below the waist.
At noon on the fifth day, a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us, a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol’ fat PBY come down and started to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin’ for my turn. I’ll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.
Anyway, we delivered the bomb.
We want to hear from you – the coolest, grooviest fans: leave us a message or leave a comment on the site or email the Decades of Horror 1970s podcast hosts at theblacksaint@decadesofhorror.com or docrotten@decadesofhorror.com.
Great podcast. Made me want to jump in and be part of the conversation. So much to say and add but I’ll keep it as short as possible.
I”ll just say that the scene with the two men on the pier was necessary to keep the tension of the film continuously taut. It’s why Spielberg added the Ben Gardner boat scene. Both scenes help to keep the audience engaged and on their toes. To use a fishing analogy, sometimes you have to reel it in and sometimes you have to let the line go slack to successfully catch a fish,The same is true with an audience and Spielberg does a great job in sensing the right amount of pacing and tension in this film to hook an audience in.
On the technical side, I wished you could have talked a little more about editing in the podcast. From what I’ve read Verna Fields was absolutely instrumental in making this film work the way it did. Als it would have been interesting to compare editing then and now. I remember seeing an interview with Spielberg where he talked about missing editing on a moviola because it gave him more time to think as the film was being cut rather than with current computer technology where the edited cuts happen more instantaneously giving less time for alternate ideas to ferment,
Outside of commenting, how can get to be part of this chickenshit outfit? I know its my party and my charter but your podcast. How about I throw in two cases of apricot brandy and dinner when you let me in. Plus champagne, pate de foie, iranian caviar and I won’t forget the color TV.