“Shark City” – “Jaws” and Memories of the Summer of ‘75
Growing up in the small town of Kings Park, on Long Island, New York, one of the destinations every summer was to the town pool at the Smithtown Landing Country Club.
Oh sure, Long Island was chock full of a lot of wonderful beaches, the two that I remember going to quite a bit was the local Callahans Beach, on the Long Island Sound, and Robert Moses State Park Beach, on the ocean.
However, During the summer of 1975, we spent a lot of time at the Smithtown Landing Country Club Pool, and so did a lot of other people. The pool was jam-packed, shoulder to shoulder that whole summer, and for one reason…
…” Jaws.”
Steven Spielberg's iconic film had a profound impact in our small area of the world, Long Island, New York, and it had a significant impact on the entire world that summer of 1975. People ran from beaches and into movies theaters. And even though it's now 50 summers ago, I have vivid memories of that “Summer of Jaws.”
I was eight going on nine that summer, and I remember one night early in the season, my parents went out, and my cousin Patty came and babysat for me. A commercial came on TV. The first image was someone pounding a “Beach Closed” sign into the sand. My cousin Patty excitedly said, “I want to see this movie!”
Then, after Jaws came out, and my cousin Patty and other friends and family went to see it, it became the talk of the entire summer. However, for my cousins and friends of a similar age to me, it became a mythological thing. You see, our parents didn't think we were old enough yet to see Jaws. After all, the poster read, down at the bottom, under the credits: “…May Be Too Intense For Younger Children.”
So, we weren't allowed to go to see it, which just made us want to see it all the more! “Why not go to see That Darn Cat and Robin Hood? It's playing at the Disney Summer Film Festival?,” our parents asked.
We all settled for the magic of Disney, but Jaws was out there like this forbidden fruit of a movie.
Soon, some kids in the neighborhood did go to see it, and they came back with stories. Oh, the stories! “There's this scene where this kid gets eaten on the raft, and blood spurts up in the air like a geyser!” “This guy's head, that's been bitten off by the shark, pops out of the inside of a boat!”
Then there were the stories that started to circulate, the rumors - people passing out in the movie theater while watching it, people having heart attacks while watching it because it was so scary. One kid in my neighborhood, who was lucky enough to go to see it, went so far as to tell me that his older sister threw up into her popcorn bucket while watching Jaws!
There were also stories in the newspaper and on TV about how local beaches were empty as Jaws had generated a collective fear of sharks.
This made me, and the other kids who were shut out of Jaws by their parents, beg our parents all the more. As these stories circulated, it made our parents shut us down all the more.
Then, the merchandise started to appear in stories - T-shirts, posters, beach towels. Oh yeah, I sported my Jaws "tank top" that whole summer.
Then, the summer of 75 ended, and it was back to school, and Jaws-mania continued.
Some of my classmates were lucky enough to have seen Jaws over the summer, and their stories and tales continued, recounting the entire plot of the movie. That Christmas, the Jaws game by Ideal was under my Christmas tree. And an obsession with sharks, reading up on them, learning about them, writing reports for school about them, continued.
Then, finally, several summers later, Jaws was reissued to theaters. At this point, my parents could hold back no longer; feeling I was old enough to see it, they took me. Going to the theater, sitting in the theater, waiting for the movie to start, and even when the movie started, was like going on a roller coaster that everyone had told you about. Just as I eagerly awaited the twists and turns of a roller coaster, my heart was pounding before certain scenes in the movie, anticipating what was to come.
It more than exceeded the excitement that came with it that summer of 1975, and my obsession with the movie continued. A year later, it came on cable TV. And in our pre-Betamax, pre-VHS age, I audio-taped the movie. That's right, I put my audio tape recorder up next to the speaker of our furniture-sized TV in our living room, and taped the movie, audio only. I would listen to it the way some kids listen to the latest Top 40 hits from the radio, memorizing every line.
Of course, sequels followed. But, the excitement of Jaws 2 gave way to the new excitement of the musical Grease that summer of 78. And Jaws 3D in '83 didn't hold the same excitement. I felt bad for Jaws: The Revenge the summer it came out in '87, as many ridiculed it before it even hit theaters. However, in full disclosure, all have become incredible, guilty pleasures. It's always nice just to be back in the Jaws world.
I've owned Jaws in every form of physical and digital media. I've devoured any book, article, and podcast, and interview about the movie. My bookshelf is jam-packed with publications about the making of the film, including a prized possession, the book The Jaws Log, signed by Carl Gottlieb, who co-wrote the screenplay. That book is courtesy of my good friend Andy, another fellow Jaws fan. Best friends for over 20 years, we refer to each other simply as Quint and Brody (I'm Quint!)
In 2015, my wife, Michelle, and I made a pilgrimage to Martha's Vineyard to tour the area where Jaws was filmed in 1974 and also take one of the area's lovely Jaws tours. Two years later, we went to a local movie convention, where we were thrilled to meet Susan Backline, the actress who played Chrissy, the first victim in Jaws, as well as Hooper himself, Richard Dreyfus!
In our home, we have three shelves filled with action figures, coffee mugs, mini posters, figurines, lunchboxes, and even sneakers, all themed after Jaws. It's my shrine to the movie.
Jaws has always been a part of my life and always will be. It's that rare, once-in-a-lifetime movie that's gone beyond the screen and impacted our pop culture and our lives as well.
Fifty years later, as I reflect on the movie, it's also filled with memories. Each of those memories is a mirror of a specific point in my life and where I was at that time. And Jaws was always there.
Many talk about how Jaws is an always relevant, relatable story about how evil can lurk anywhere, but can be overcome when people (like Brody, Hooper and Quint from different sections of society) come together.
For me, like many, Jaws is the excitement of what the movies are all about – a grand, scary, funny, fulfilling adventure – told by master director Steven Spielberg who, crafts with film the way artists craft with clay. And, whether watching it in a theater or at home, it’s still a communal experience with other moviegoers.
This summer, as I think of Jaws, I'll remember that summer of 1975, when all of us from our small town of Kings Park took safety at the Smithtown Landing Country Club Pool. Here, we knew the only sharks were those in our imaginations, filled with dreams of going to see Jaws at the theater.
Happy 50th Anniversary, Jaws!
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