Jaws was not the first movie I saw in a theater, but it is the first movie I remember seeing in a theater.  I was ten years old, and it was both thrilling and terrifying.  To this day, I know people my age who are afraid of the ocean.  Jaws evokes a type of primal fear.  There is a monster out there somewhere that is coming for us.  We can’t see the monster, but we know it’s there.

So much of Jaws plays on this fear.  We don’t see the shark until more than halfway through the film but it’s power and relentless nature are present from the very beginning.  The opening sequence, where a female swimmer is tugged back and forth while screaming for help, then finally pulled under for good, will cause you to hold your breath even after multiple viewings. 

Much of the tension built into the film comes from the brilliant soundtrack by John Williams.  Amazingly simple, “dun dun” is perhaps the most memorable pair of musical notes in movie history.  Play it slowly and you sense something lurking.  Play it at a faster pace and you know something is about to happen.  Play it enough times and you condition the audience to know when something is happening and when it’s a false alarm.  To get the maximum amount of impact, don’t play it and surprise the hell out of the audience when the shark appears out of nowhere.

For all its thrills, Jaws also features some wonderful performances.  Roy Scheider seems to effortlessly switch between the no nonsense Chief Brody tasked with protecting the public and the landlubber completely out of his element on the shark boat.  Richard Dreyfus manages to be feisty, witty and a bit nerdy all at once as Hooper, a rich kid turned shark expert.  However, it is Robert Shaw who steals every scene he is in as Captain Quint.  From the moment he appears in the film, you sense that he has waited his entire life to test himself against this very shark.   

Perhaps the best scenes of the movie are when Brody, Hooper and Quint are together on the boat.  Hooper and Quint don’t seem to like each other much until they start comparing stories and scars.  Then, Quint delivers a terrifying and prescient monologue about being in the water with sharks after the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis.  Finally, the three sing a slightly tipsy version of “Show Me the Way to Go Home” just before the action picks up again. 

Jaws is the ultimate summer movie.  In fact, it was the first summer blockbuster.  It’s June 20, 1975, release was proceeded by a massive advertising campaign, and it opened on 464 screens in 409 theaters.  During its opening weekend, it grossed a record $7 Million.  The record was short-lived as summer blockbusters became the norm and Star Wars eclipsed it two years later.  It was also the first film to surpass the $100 Million mark. 

Jaws was nominated for Best Picture but lost to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975).  It won three other Oscars for Best Sound (Robert L. Hoyt, Roger Heman, Jr., Earl Madery and John R. Carter), Best Film Editing (Verna Fields) and Best Music, Original Dramatic Score (John Williams).