Jaws Released 44 Years Ago Today

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On this day in 1975 Jaws was released in theaters.

This firmed up the already growing reputation of Spielberg as a consummate director.

One of his early works was for TV’s Night Gallery, a Rod Serling production in an episode that starred Joan Crawford.

Ms. Crawford said:

“When I began to work with Steven, I understood everything. It was immediately obvious to me, and probably everyone else, that here was a young genius. I thought maybe more experience was important, but then I thought of all of those experienced directors who didn’t have Steven’s intuitive inspiration and who just kept repeating the same old routine performances. That was called “experience.” I knew then that Steven Spielberg had a brilliant future ahead of him. Hollywood doesn’t always recognize talent, but Steven’s was not going to be overlooked. I told him so in a note I wrote him. I wrote to Rod Serling, too. I was so grateful that he had approved Steven as the director. I told him he had been totally right.”

Other early works were Sugarland Express which starred Goldie Hawn in an early work for her after Laugh In, and before that, the highly acclaimed TV film, Duel staring Dennis Weaver being stalked by a tanker truck drive.

So Spielberg was already well known when he had the opportunity to take over the direction of Jaws from the fired Dick Richards who couldn’t remember that a shark was not a whale. The filming was way over budget and took 3 times longer than scheduled to shoot. It was almost shut down but Universal Pictures let it finish and it earned $450 million. It was the first of 3 collaborations with Richard Dreyfuss and it had John Williams doing the score for which it won the Academy Award.

That Jaws made Spielberg’s career is arguable. With his talent and already having a very good reputation and resume there is little doubt that he would have gone on to fame anyway. But it certainly created a path of even more fantastic films for Spielberg to work on.

One tidbit; the famous line “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” was ab libbed.

". . . those who claim to know the Mind of God, who will tell you what God thinks and how He will judge and condemn others—those people are the greatest of all blasphemers." Aloysius Xingu Leng Pendergast

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