Far be it from me to ignore a trend, and with today being the first official day of Shark Week, why not celebrate with a week of shark films? And why not start things off with arguably the first killer shark film? Or at least the most influential.
We see a bunch of teens hanging out on the beach of Amity Island. One pair of teens, Chrissie (Susan Blacklinie) and a boy pair off and slip away from the crowd for a late night skinny dip. Chrissie proves to be more successful than the boy and quickly sheds her clothes and swims some distance from shore while he drunkenly stumbles around before finally passing out.
What follows might be one of the most referenced/parodied scenes in all of cienma. With John Williams' score building, we see from the point of view something under the water. Chrissie meets her end quickly but clearly not painlessly. Her remains are found on the beach the next day.
This brings in Chief of Police Martin Brody (Roy Scheider). He's new to the island, having transferred from the big city along with his wife Ellen (Lorraine Gray) and two sons. After the coroner declares Chrissie the victim of a shark attack, Brody orders the beaches closed.
Problem solved, right? Well, as Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) points out, Amity is a summer island. if people can't swim there, they'll go somewhere else and, more importantly, spend their money there too. With the town council backing him and the coroner revising his report, Brody finds himself powerless as the beaches are open for business.
Which turns out to be a bad idea, as ten year old Alex Kintner (Jeffery Voorhees) is devoured in full view of the crowded beach. His grieving mother (Lee Fierro) first slaps Brody then offers a three thousand dollar reward to anyone who call kill the shark.
During a meeting of the town, fisherman Quint (Robert Shaw) offers to find the shark for 3 but he'll catch and kill him for ten. The meeting breaks down but during the near riot of fishermen flooding the harbor marine biologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfus) arrives. During the hullabaloo a tiger shark is killed and Vaughn calls it a day.
Hooper isn't convinced though and neither is Brody. Taking Hooper's boat out at night, they find the wrecked remains of Ben Gardner's boat. Hooper finds the wrecked remains of Gardner (Craig Kingsbury) but neither man can convince Vaughn to close the beaches.
July 4th comes and the beaches are crowded. The great white is there too, and ignoring the teeming beaches and patrol boats in the harbor, swims right into the pond and snacks down on a poor boater (Ted Grossman) right in front of Brody's son Michael (Chris Rebello).
With the summer officially over, Quint is hired, with Brody and Hooper heading out on his rickety ship the Orca to kill the beast. This shark, however, is a bit smarter than your average fish and soon it becomes a question of who is hunting who?
Wonderful; the shark in question is wisely kept off screen for as long as possible which works to the film's benefit. Every role is perfectly cast and it is obvious to see the ability of Spielberg as a director. Which is all the more amazing considering how bad the novel was. Seriously, we spend more time on crooked real estate deals than with the shark. Of course, a film this popular can spawn imitators too which we'll get to later.
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