June 20, 1975: Jaws premieres, turning Steven Spielberg into a star director, and inventing the "Summer blockbuster film."
It was based on the novel of the same title, by Peter Benchley, grandson of Robert Benchley of Algonquin Round Table fame. He later regretted writing the book, because the movie led people to go out and kill sharks who had done nothing wrong.
The movie was filmed on Martha's Vineyard, off the coast of Massachusetts, and "The Vineyard" stood in for the fictional Amity Island.
Roy Scheider, having previously played a second banana in The French Connection, proved that you didn't have to look like Steve McQueen, Paul Newman or Robert Redford to be an action hero.
Richard Dreyfuss, having played teenagers in American Graffiti and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, was so much better playing a young, thoughtful scientist like Hooper than being a rotten old man. It's one thing to play a mean old Republican, like he did in The American President and W., and he was damn good at both. It's another thing to be one.
English actor Robert Shaw played Quint, who became a shark-hunter after surviving the shark attack on the survivors of the Japanese attack on the USS Indianapolis in the waning days of World War II. Surviving a harrowing wartime experience should make a man less of a jerk, not more. Quint never figured this out.
Murray Hamilton played Mayor Larry Vaughn, a coward who pandered to local businesses. He would have made a great modern Southern Republican. In contrast, as Chief Brody, Scheider gives off serious "I'm a Republican of conscience, and that's why I'm now a guest on MSNBC at least 3 times a week" vibes.
Look, I get why some people root for the shark. Frankly, I wept not at all when it chomped Quint up. I would have cheered if it had gotten that useless Mayor, the real villain of the movie. But you're not supposed to root for the shark, any more than you root for the witch in The Wizard of Oz, or Barzini in The Godfather, or Darth Vader in Star Wars, or Thanos in the Marvel movies.
"Smile, you son of a bitch!" is a better "I'm about to kill you!" line than was ever delivered by John Wayne, and neither Clint Eastwood, nor Sylvester Stallone, nor Arnold Schwarzenegger, nor Bruce Willis has ever topped it, either. Nor will they, in whatever time is left to them.
There were 3 sequels by 1987. The less said about them, the better.
Shaw died in 1978, Hamilton in 1986, Scheider in 2008. As of June 20, 2022, Spielberg, Dreyfuss, and Lorraine Gary, who played Ellen Brody, the Chief's wife, are still alive.
I don't like horror movies, and Jaws has too much screaming for me to buy some people's argument that it's a "perfect movie." But it's a great movie, one proven by both the post-9/11 hysteria and COVID to have stood the test of time.
If had not been made then, and were made today, would it have the same impact? Probably not, since we've been desensitized to some forms of fear. Except... You're gonna need a bigger bank account.
In a 2014 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, "Nice" Peter Shukoff played Spielberg. It became a "battle royale" of film directors, with Peter also playing Michael Bay, while "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist played Alfred Hitchcock, rapper Michael "Wax" Jones played Quentin Tarantino, and rapper Ruggles Outbound played Stanley Kubrick.
*
June 20, 1975 was a Friday. These Major League Baseball games were played:
* The New York Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers, 10-9 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Rudy May didn't get out of the 1st inning, as the Tigers tagged him for 7 runs. But the Yankees nearly came back against Vern Ruhle, with 6 runs in the top of the 9th. Mickey Stanley's home run in the 7th made the difference. Graig Nettles and Bobby Bonds, in his only season with the Yankees, hit home runs. Nettles and Walt "No Neck" Williams each got 3 hits.
* The New York Mets lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-1 at Shea Stadium. Tom Seaver and Brooklyn native John Candelaria had a pitcher's duel going, until Willie Stargell hit a home run in the top of the 7th. The Mets tied it in the bottom of the 8th. Met manager Yogi Berra brought Tom Hall in to pitch the 9th, and he had nothing, and neither did Bob Apodaca, and the Bucs scored 3 runs, to make a winning pitcher out of Candelaria.
* The Boston Red Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles, 4-3 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Rick Burleson hit a sacrifice fly to score Doug Griffin with the winning run in the top of the 12th inning. Carl Yastrzemski went 3-for-3 with 3 walks. Brooks Robinson went 0-for-5.
* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Montreal Expos, 7-4 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Greg Luzinski hit a home run. Mike Schmidt did not play.
* The Atlanta Braves beat the San Francisco Giants, 4-2 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.
* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Cleveland Indians, 6-0 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Jim Slaton pitched a 6-hit shutout. Robin Yount went 2-for-4 with a walk. Hank Aaron was available for the Brewers, but did not play. Nor did Cleveland player-manager Frank Robinson insert himself into the game. So that's 2 men with a combined 1,321 career home runs who could have played in this game, but didn't.
* The Minnesota Twins beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-3 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Rod Carew went 2-for-5 for the Twins, while Steve Brye hit a home run. Bucky Dent went 3-for-4 for the White Sox, while Ken Henderson hit a home run.
* The St. Louis Cardinals beat their arch-rivals, the Cago Cubs, 8-3 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Houston Astros, 7-3 at the Astrodome in Houston. Pete Rose went 2-for-5. Johnny Bench went 1-for- 4 with a walk.
* The San Diego Padres beat their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, 2-1 at San Diego Stadium (later renamed Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium). Willie McCovey, who never looked right in a Padre uniform -- then again, in the 1970s, nobody did -- hit a home run.
* The California Angels beat the Texas Rangers, 12-11 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). The Rangers scored 6 runs in the 1st inning, before the Angels even came to bat, chasing Bill Singer. But Gaylord Perry couldn't hold it, and the Angels led 8-7 after 6.
The Rangers sent the game to extra innings, and scored 3 runs in the top of the 11th. But the Angels scored 4 in the bottom half, the winning run scoring when 2nd baseman Mike Cubbage mishandled Jerry Remy's ground ball. Morris Nettles, no relation to Graig (Morris was black), had an RBI double in the inning.
* And the Oakland Athletics beat the Kansas City Royals, 3-1 at the Oakland Coliseum. Reggie Jackson went 2-for-4 with 2 RBIs. George Brett went 0-for-4.
No comments:
Post a Comment