Jaws (1975)

Spoilers Ahead 

There is a quite respected institution in Los Angeles that endeavors to preserve and restore LA's historical sites. Last Remaining Seats helps to fund the conservation of historical LA buildings and landmarks. How do they do this you ask? By showing movies at old theatres (the Orpheum is almost 100 years old) during the month of June. The showings used to only be on Wednesdays (still mad I missed King Kong because of my high school graduation) with occasional Saturday movies. This year, they had about two movies a week and a couple of new venues including San Pedro. Last Saturday was the final film for the 2017 season of Last Remaining Seats, Jaws. Good thing is they had a gorgeous print.

I won't be going in to great detail for the plot of Jaws because the film's been out for over forty years however, I will be talking about some of the more fascinating elements for the film. Before the start of the film, several of the men who worked on Jaws discussed making it. Universal didn't think it would do well (they were more focused on Earthquake) which might be the single greatest underestimation of a film. The production designer, Joe Alves, relayed a story about how he, Spielberg, and another guy went to the editor's house to film a scene in her pool. In order to do so, somebody (Alves very specifically didn't say a name) had to go to the wardrobe department at Universal Studies and steal a (fake) head. I am operating under the assumption that Steven Spielberg stole from Universal to make a movie. Also on the production side, that shark used cutting edge tech (for the time) and was built in five months and had to be constantly repaired do to the production schedule.

The main thing I wanted to discuss is Quint, the crazy old sea bastard that hunts sharks. His introduction is one of genius. After the shark (affectionately named Bruce after Spielberg's lawyer) kills for the second time, the town holds a meeting to decide what to do. Chief Brody is calling for closing the beaches which is an unpopular opinion. (Little background: setting is a small beach town that makes all of their money during the summer.) The mayor's also a complete moron and dresses like it. After some discussion over a $3,000 bounty for the shark, Quint makes his presence known by scraping his nails on a chalkboard. His "sales pitch" is where it gets interesting. Quint addresses not the mayor or other town officials but, speaks directly to Brody. It shows his level of respect for Brody and his lack thereof for the rest of the town. Here's why, Brody (an outsider) is the only person who is reacting rationally to a killer shark incident. Quint is a very intense man with even stronger convictions. That being said, he will admit when he's wrong (by following Hooper's more techy approach after his way fails spectacularly.)

Now for the evening as a whole, Last Remaining Seats always tries to provide something interesting before the screening. That night had music played on the Wurlitzer organ as well as some thoughts on classic theatre curtains. Believe me when I say that these people know way more about old theatre curtains that you ever thought existed. The audience was amazing except for the lovely lady who was the most excitable person on the planet. She had to make some kind of noise every time something even remotely shocking happens. It wouldn't bother me except that she sat right next to me and she had to be incredibly shocked whenever there was a single drop of blood on the screen. This movie has a shark killing people. There's going to be some blood happening. It was just annoying and irritating.

Overall Rating: 4.5/5