Beer, Wine, and Apricot Brandy: The Blue-Collar Booze of "Jaws"
The Original Summer Blockbuster Turns 50
“Duunnn dunnn... duuuunnnn duun... duuunnnnnnnn dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnn dunnnn…”
Fifty years ago today, Steven Spielberg’s second film, Jaws—the first contemporary picture shot at sea—opened on 490 screens across America and in less than three months went on to make $100 million dollars, becoming the then highest-grossing film of all time ushering in the era of the summer blockbuster.
A core childhood memory is my brother Scott taking me to see Jaws on opening weekend at our local movie theatre in Canastota, New York, in June 1975. Did I mention I was six years old? Whether my mother signed off on Scott’s hazy “parental guidance” or was just happy to have two of their three kids keeping themselves busy on a summer night, seeing that picture unlocked the nostalgic floodgates to all the other perennial blockbusters of my youth I was fortunate to watch in a movie theatre on opening weekend, including Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, and so many more.
Even with his Cool Older Brother status, Scott, who was already on his second viewing of Jaws that weekend, wisely covered my eyes during the underwater scene when the pale, bloated, decomposing head and torso of fisherman Ben Gardner pops out of the hull of a half-sunken boat. But the eerie score and audience screams from the jump-scare reaction and the horror of what my imagination conjured had me covering my own eyes during that particular scene for years upon repeat viewings.
I unintentionally channeled the maybe-not-the-best babysitter persona of my brother years later one college summer while I was visiting my girlfriend in her hometown of Pound Ridge, New York. I was helping her look after the young neighborhood boy who was in her babysitting care. After taking a break from swimming in the hot sun, we moved into the air conditioned comfort of the living room as she made popcorn while I slid in the copy of Jaws I had rented the night before at Blockbuster into the VCR to entertain her young charge.
I dismissed the of-the-era mechanical shark special effects and neglected to consider the effect that the looming sense of terror lurking beneath the surface (not to mention the gnarled limbs and buckets of fake blood) might imprint on a kid more used to Disney pictures and Saturday morning cartoons. He seemed cool later in the day and even did a bit hopping around the pool on one leg to show me that Jaws had bitten his leg off. But after I left my girlfriend called to let me know that the boy’s mother called and seemed concerned, asking if anything unusual had happened because her son suddenly no longer wanted to play in their family pool and was having terrible nightmares.
The last time I saw Jaws on the big screen was a few years ago to take in a limited anniversary release of a restored 35mm print at the Regal Essex Crossing on Delancey. Unfortunately it also happened to occur on a national “Free Movie Day” promotion the theatre chain was running and the darkened theatre was constantly disrupted and illuminated by the poor manners and phones of the packs of kids moving from theatre to theatre constantly texting and talking and shuffling their seats before moving on to the next movie after getting bored (two gangly teens next to me were full on making out for most of the picture to only pause for each of them to scroll through TikTok with the sound on). This went on for two hours.