Lisa Anderson Tribune national correspondent




Dum dum dum dum dum dum . . .



For a generation of filmgoers, that ominous beat quickly conjures the summer of 1975, a season many will remember as sunny, sultry and scary--with a capital "S," as in shark.

As the summer of 2005 begins, the people of Martha's Vineyard are preparing to celebrate the 30th anniversary of "Jaws." The epic marine monster movie, based on Peter Benchley's 1974 best-selling novel, put this old whaling island on the pop culture map as the fictional shark-besieged beach resort of Amity.

T-shirts are being printed, "Jaws" location maps published and hotel rooms readied for the arrival of what the island's Chamber of Commerce hopes will be hundreds, if not thousands, of "finatics" for the first three-day Jaws Fest, beginning Friday.

Jeff Kristal, owner of Vineyard Haven's Crocker House Inn and chairman of the festival sponsorship program, compared the passion of "Jaws" finatics to that of the "trekkie" fans of TV's "Star Trek" series.

"Martha's Vineyard is the Enterprise for Jaws Fest," Kristal said. "You can't go to the Enterprise, it's on some back lot somewhere. We are the back lot [for `Jaws']."

Jaws Fest, designed to perk up the traditional tourist lull between Memorial Day and the start of the season later in June, will include tours of locations used in the film; workshops about cinema and sharks; an Amity Ball with live music and food from the island's chefs; a traditional clambake; exhibitions of film memorabilia; and appearances by members of the original movie crew and cast. Much of it will be recorded for a documentary, "Jaws--The Shark is Still Working."

Although director Steven Spielberg and actors Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider are not expected to make it, Peter Benchley plans to attend and there will be appearances all over the island by a replica of Bruce, the film's mechanical shark. The replica recently was acquired by the Chamber of Commerce.

The film will play throughout the festival, and Universal Studios, which released the original movie, will preview new material included in a 30th anniversary DVD of "Jaws" scheduled to be issued June 14.

With "Jaws," Spielberg, then 27, shocked the Speedos off most of beach-going America, inducing the sort of near-national neurosis not seen since Orson Welles' epic 1938 radio broadcast of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds."

As Welles convinced listeners that space aliens were about to attack them in their beds, Spielberg--who has his own version of "War of the Worlds" opening in theaters June 29-- convinced moviegoers that great white sharks, the scariest of piscatorial predators, were poised to snatch them from the shallows.

No one can say how many heeded the film's promotional advice, "See it before you go swimming," but more than a few experienced at least a temporary preference for sand over sea after spending 125 shark-infested minutes in a darkened theater.

That included even some hardy inhabitants of this rugged island, whose broad beaches, blue waters and quaint gingerbread-trimmed towns served as the setting for "Jaws."

"I had to sleep with the light on for the next three nights, and I did not swim in saltwater for a year and a half," said Ann Bassett, 62, a born-and-raised Vineyarder who is the events coordinator at the Bunch of Grapes bookstore in Vineyard Haven.

In fact, there has been only one confirmed unprovoked shark attack in Massachusetts since 1916, according to the International Shark Attack File compiled by the Florida Museum of Natural History. That was in 1936, but a 14-foot great white shark did swim into an estuary in the Elizabeth Islands, not far from Martha's Vineyard, last September.

Life wouldn't be the same

In honor of the "Jaws" anniversary, Bunch of Grapes arranged to reprint 1975's "On Location . . . On Martha's Vineyard (the making of the movie `Jaws')" by local resident and writer Edith Blake, who made a photographic record of how the film was made.

"It changed the course of a lot of people's lives. That silly little book has changed the course of mine, you know. It's made things fun," said Blake, a feisty, tennis-playing 79-year-old, who still lives on the island as three generations of her family did before her.

In a town where many still receive acting residuals, the movie did alter people's lives, some for a few months, some forever. As Blake wrote in her book, "Several women followed men they had met to California. And some got married. A little boy had a new bike, and a carpenter had a new truck. The Kelley House and the boatyard were out of debt, and Mrs. Carroll got a trip to Greece . . . and everyone was hoping the movie would be a success so they could watch it for years on the late show."

Bassett also remembers that time well, as some of her friends were among the 400-odd residents who played bit parts or extras in the movie, which took 159 days, instead of an expected 55, to film on the island.

Despite being plagued by all manner of expensive and nerve-racking production delays, foggy and frigid spring weather and a frequently malfunctioning Bruce, "Jaws" snatched victory--and $471 million in global ticket sales to date--from what many, including Spielberg, expected to be box office defeat.

No one is quite sure why the island didn't capitalize on the movie's 25th anniversary, said Gary Cogley, the new executive director of the chamber of commerce.

But Bassett has a theory.

"I think people here kind of think of [`Jaws'] as a home movie," she said. "I think people get excited about it on that level, and they're very surprised when people who don't live here get excited about it."

Indeed, almost every Vineyarder can spot someone or something familiar in the movie.

"It's really neat. There's an underwater shot where you can see my aunt's legs," said Peter Beauchamp, 21, working behind the counter at The Black Dog shop in Edgartown, on the northeastern coast of the island. A student at Keene State College in New Hampshire, Beauchamp said his grandparents also were in one of the beach scenes in which a shark sighting sets off a panic.

Far-reaching effects

But the fascination with "Jaws" reached far beyond the Vineyard, turning into the industry's first so-called summer blockbuster, breaking box office records and making the cover of Time magazine, which proclaimed the "Summer of the Shark."

Over the past 30 years, "Jaws" has become so much a cultural benchmark that the relentless "dum dum dum dum dum dum" sound of John Williams' Oscar-winning score remains an ominous and often-mimicked aural cue for coming calamity.

"In a scary sort of way, everyone is traveling through life with the theme of `Jaws' playing in the background," said Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture and director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. "If one thing doesn't get them, another will, whether it's the pink slip--you've been fired--or the bad medical diagnosis.

"What was so especially, metaphorically powerful about this, of course, is you remember the poster of `Jaws' with this woman in the water. Half of her is above the water thinking everything is fine. The other half is dangling in the water with this huge monster below her. . . . It's such a great tale of vulnerability," Thompson said.

That woman, who plays Chrissie, the shark's first victim in the movie's opening scenes, was stuntwoman/actress Susan Backlinie. Now 58, retired and living on a boat off the California coast, she said she never developed a fear of sharks even though Spielberg told her he wanted "people under their seats on the floor with the popcorn and the bubble gum when your scene is done."

Said Backlinie, "As I tell kids, you've got to remember it's a movie. Steven just made it look so real that you think of it when you go into the water."

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[Edited 5/30/05 18:28pm]

Great White sharks are the most horrific creatures.

That movie sucked.

The Jaws movies are scary, as well as this one.

Mach said:

AsianBoi777 said:

why ... ?

Cool! I go to Martha's Vineyard every year...I love it there.

CarrieLee said:

get me a Black Dog T-shirt, will ya?

abierman said:

Do you really want one?

CarrieLee said:

luv4u said:

This is one of my faves. I saw it when it first came out. I'm dating myself, I know.


M

thesexofit said:

ok, but I hope you do realize the significance of this film in terms of cinematic history!

Natsume said:

co-sign