Jaws Might Be The Luckiest Mistake In Movie History | CineFix Top 100

[@kylegoethe8579]

I know it isn't always possible, but I'm so happy when they are in the same room for these discussions.

[@axnyslie]

41:38 The mother showing up to slap Brody. This was real. She could not convincingly pull her punch so she slapped Roy Scheider’s face hard for a total 17 takes! A direct quote from Roy about it: "The actress had no idea how to hit someone in the movies. Every time she slapped me, she really slapped me and it hurt like hell. She had no control. A couple of times I wanted to strangle her, but it was very effective.”

[@darinfoat8410]

They're all at the same table. Why does Cal's audio sound like he's calling in on a land line?

[@numarion]

it seems there were some background noises caught on his mic earlier in the video, so they Noise Gated the crap outta his mic so anything under a threshold of sound, it silences entire sound out, so that's what's happening

[@KyrosX27]

The audio for this one was all sorts of wonky. loud at times, ok at times, quiet for other times with certain people. probably minor niggles since they're all in the studio but yeah, takes away from a great episode.

[@MikeClayton]

It’s a close proximity mic and it’s too far from his mouth

[@6thwilbury2331]

​ @MikeClayton Good observation. Not just distance but direction. When Alex talks, she looks back and forth between her two co-hosts. The levels swing all over the place depending on which way she turns.

[@PhilMoskowitz]

He's not talking into the mic. Mics are vibrating mechanical devices. Not talking into the mic produces lower sampling quality and therefore lower resolution.

[@danyk426]

So excited! Jaws is my number 1 also!! I grew up up during a time when it felt like Jaws was on tv all the time and no matter what I was doing I’d sit down and watch it. Finally got to see it in theaters at 25 🎉

[@R3troZone]

"Wasn't it out for like a year?" Yeah that's what successful movies did. There's a reason movies like Star Wars and ET and Jurassic Park made hundreds of millions of dollars in a time when tickets cost under $5 per person. It's because they ran in theaters for months to even years. Star Wars opened in May 1977 and ran for 135 weeks before finally leaving the big screen. That's 2 and a half years in theaters.

[@soulresuscitate]

Just when I think this office can't get any more awesome, you have a MVC2 cabinet RIGHT THERE!

[@Dkatanasoul0]

And they took us for a ride!

[@shenloken2]

When a movie goes from being a hellacious struggle to an absolute culture-defining moment that practically invented summer blockbusters: that’s lightning caught in a bottle you proudly display on your shelf!!

[@samuelwallace2782]

Not to mention that if it had bombed, it likely would have ended Spielbergs career before it even got started.

[@rhysalexander182]

Is it a coincidence that this is released a couple of days after Patrick Willems?

[@TDawgBR]

I know right? And them also asking "If Bruce had worked, would the movie had been worse?"

[@thebonesaw..4634]

Considering that these take literal weeks to write and put together, I would chock it up to a simple coincidence. But CineFix still sucks, nothing changes that fact.

[@WhiskyCanuck]

Patrick's video is a good watch, people should check it out. Good insights into how significant - or not - mechanical shark problems were.

[@AnonymousFreakYT]

@@TDawgBR People have been saying that basically since the movie came out, though. *ANY* in-depth analysis will bring that up.

[@karlkarlos3545]

@@AnonymousFreakYT The difference is that Patrick Willems is mostly debunking the legends about the malfunctioning shark making Jaws a better movie.

[@hrlgold]

I first watched JAWS at my grandparents house when I was 3. It is my favorite movie without a doubt. I watch it whenever I’m in a bad or sad mood and it automatically cheers me up. I still carry the VHS I got when I was a kid in my car for good luck. I know I’m not alone when it comes say this movie means the world to me.

[@lorrainem.swartzentruber3077]

This is one of my favorites. Just so well written. I use "we're going to need a bigger ....." all the time. It also made me fear sharks in any body of water including pools.🤦

[@punchingpillow]

Amazing that when discussing whether there's something better than Williams' 2 notes, Psycho doesn't even come up.

[@mango4ttwo635]

yes. Always reminds me of the Psycho music, and surely influenced by it

[@MartyMcFly88]

Easily one of the greatest films ever made

[@spideyman2099]

Before finishing the video, I actually DID read the novel a year or two ago. I can say that it's one of those movies that just is better than the book. Not that the book is bad, but when the film based off your book is Jaws it's hard to stand on your own. What a masterpiece of a film though, kinda perfect in every way. Though I will say, Close Encounters is my fav Spielberg film. Probably.

[@aranbuzzas8000]

The movie is MUCH better than the book.

[@6thwilbury2331]

I'm not sure if they're still popular, but back in the 70s and 80s, novelizations of hit movies were huge. I read the Jaws book probably around 1980, not knowing for decades - namely, the Cinefix channel - that the book came first. 😂

[@AnonymousFreakYT]

7:15 - My wife tends to swing her arm(s) for jump scares. Whenever I know one is coming and I'm sitting next to her, I have to put an arm up to protect my face. It's funny when she doesn't know one's coming "why are you-AAAAAAAH!"

[@FatFiber8096]

Fun fact: last year there was a broadway play by Ian Shaw (Robert Shaws son) called the shark is broken about the making of jaws and Ian played his dad

[@lyndoncmp5751]

Last year? I saw it in London in 2021 😉.

[@Njbear7453]

Majority of jaws fans know this

[@billymuellerTikTok]

18:00 my favorite Eddie Van Halen story is when Michael Jackson hired him to do the guitar solo for 'Beat It'... Eddie came in, took out his guitar, started to play a few finger exercises just to warm up and Michael Jackson said "ok perfect!" - luckily producer Quincy Jones had already been recording so Eddie just packed his guitar back up and left.

[@zyllofmitain]

18:09 the two-note theme alone is amazing, but what makes it work is the lower note that is similar to the rite of spring in its punctuated rhythm. Williams used these same three notes to write the theme for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Like the similarities between Raiders and Superman, Jaws and Close Encounters are kissing cousins.

[@johnsensebe3153]

I don't think the common belief that a working shark would have added a lot more shark shots to the movie. Shooting those scenes took a lot longer than planned, implying that Speilberg was going to get what he wanted regardless. What the broken shark did do, however, was to get Speilberg to film a bunch of inserts that didn't require the shark-little scenes that weren't in the script. This allowed him to make some use of the time spent waiting for the shark to be ready, and many of these made it into the final film, including "You're gonna need a bigger boat."

[@lyndoncmp5751]

According to Joe Alves, they eventually more or less got every shot of the shark that they planned to get. The shark was never planned to be shown properly during the first half of the story. It was kept hidden by design.

[@lutherheggs451]

It isn't a "common belief" its a FACT everyone who worked on the movie have all said out loud several hundred times that the shark would have been in the movie ALOT if it had actually worked. Spielberg has said several hundred times that they got lucky it wasn't working. Jaws 2 is what Jaws would have been if the shark had actually worked

[@johnsensebe3153]

@@lutherheggs451 Name some names. The script and the shooting schedule would disagree with you. A movie production produces a *lot* of paper.

[@MicoDossun]

I watched the 3D rerelease a couple years back and I won’t pretend adding 3D retroactively changed the movie from like a 9 to a 10 or anything but it did give me a deeper appreciation for how the movie was composed. The added depth really highlighted how often you could just see the coastline way back in a shot, like the shark was just like looming in the back

[@lydia1634]

John Williams did the orchestrations for Fiddler on the Roof on 1971. I highly recommend listening to the film's version of "Miracle of Miracles" and comparing it to the Flying Theme from ET

[@billymuellerTikTok]

119:26 it wasn't Bruce not working as to why we didn't see the shark in the opening scene... Spielberg intentionally didn't want to show the shark until later on to build suspense

[@lyndoncmp5751]

Indeed. The shark was never scheduled to be used for the first half of the film. Couldn't be used in the 3ft to 4ft shallow water where they filmed the beach attack scenes anyway. It was hidden early on by design. Spielberg was already a suspense director, as Duel and Something Evil proves.

[@lutherheggs451]

@@lyndoncmp5751 Literally EVERYONE who worked on the film have all specifically stated out loud several hundred times including Spielberg, the shark was not in the movie much because it wasn't working. He wasn't building suspense or anticipation. Jaws 2 is EXACTLY what Jaws would have been if the shark had actually worked.

[@samuelwallace2782]

​@@lutherheggs451Right, but it also wasn't meant to be early on. Once they were on the open water, that's where he was forced to film around the shark using the barrels

[@DyenamicFilms]

Saw Jaws in the theater as a kid in 1975. I was never the same since. Still my all-time favorite. Also saw it in the theater in 1976, 1979 (rerelease), 1981 (dollar theater) and 2012 (NBCUniversal employee screening). Saw it when it was first broadcast on TV. First viewing on VHS was in 1984, laserdisc 1992 (first widescreen version), DVD 2000, Blu Ray 2012 and 4k in 2022. The Jaws soundtrack was the first record album I owned which I got Christmas '76. I wanted it for the main theme, but I soon discovered just how brilliant the whole score is. My favorite cue is not the shark theme, but Promenade: Tourists on the Menu (aka Montage from the actual soundtrack). Still have the album. Originally had it on 8 track, but that got eaten by the player (which was like a shark itself eating also my Star Wars soundtrack).

[@MrMann0123]

No word of a lie, i think this is the greatest AND most perfect movie of all time.

[@StefanBorglducky]

My mom apparently snuck in and saw this movie way too young... She said she walked home past some acres that evening and was scared of anything that might move around her even though it was tall grass :')

[@theqrm]

Great installment! 🦈👍 But I think the MVP has to go to Scheider...

[@allisonbergh4429]

I *do* think about how crazy music is, ALL THE TIME. This stuff is vibrations through the air, that goes into your brain through your ears and makes you FEEL THINGS. It’s incredible, and John Williams never misses. (The score to Jurassic Park is the best movie score ever)

[@Advent3546]

Talk about a movie that has earned its reputation and then some.

[@emd476]

Watched this film for the first time in the first months of Covid. It felt very timely. Him running around the beach trying to close things down so people don’t die, and the mayor following along behind saying ‘everything’s safe’, in full denial while trying to save the tourism industry.

[@ragnadrabinowitz7629]

this movie made me love movies

[@ReverendMeat51]

Perfect comment for a perfect movie

[@theonlymegumegu]

the discussion on the music has me wanting to relisten to the ep of The Soundtrack Show on Jaws. I still remember where he talked about using the jaws theme when playing with his very young daughter one time, who clearly had never seen the movie, but immediately parsed the thematic significance of the notes in context of the playing

[@hussd21]

Jaws is my all time favorite horror movie ever made. So I wouldn't want Nic Cage anywhere near this movie, but if I had to put him somewhere in it I would have him be the guy who says "A what?" when Hooper says the dead shark is a tiger shark

[@billymuellerTikTok]

Nicolas Cage would have been GREAT in JAWS as the Shark

[@DrakeAurum]

I agree that Nic Cage doesn't work for this movie, but I want to see the version of it where the guy whose dog gets eaten is played by Keanu Reeves.

[@branagain]

I saw JAWS in the theater for the first time with the IMAX release in Sept 2022. It was so cool. Took my teenage kids to see it. I was so jealous of them. Experiencing JAWS for the first time on the biggest screen.

[@madelinemitchell5102]

I recently rewatched “the Poseidon Adventure” & John Williams scored that movie🎉❤

[@LesWalker2023]

Just to share, John Williams scored a bunch of movies before Jaws, a rare Dick Van Dyke comedy "Fitzwilly" where he was still called "Johnny" Williams, the best of the old disaster movies of the early 70's, "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno", 1973 and 74 consecutively...Williams did a lot for Irwin Allen (Lost in Space), before getting REALLY big with "JAWS" and beyond...The man scored some hits!

[@salyx]

Hooper is my favorite. “Hahahah, they’re all gonna die.” 😂

[@caricatureparty]

Hey! I thought you were on'y going to talk about the jump scare, but then you gotta go and show it.

[@lyndoncmp5751]

Fantastic discussion. Really enjoyed it. Just want to point out that almost nobody gets that the older man who the mayor pressures to get in the water was also complicit in the cover up. He gets out of the car on the car ferry with the mayor and newspaper editor and is sitting at the councillors desk during the town hall meeting. He's part of the problem. The mayor is just the mouthpiece for the town council. The actor's name was Phil Dube, a local Martha's Vineyard personality.

[@Zed-fq3lj]

Jaws in top 100 - absolutely!🤩

[@ChristianMonte-dk1ye]

Enjoyed the discussion. Many great points were brought up. However, Quint is not swallowed whole by the shark in the novel. He is dragged under water by the shark as he is entangled in the harpoon ropes. It’s a nod to Captain Ahab in Moby Dick. All that aside, keep up the good work.

[@ProfCoolio]

One Halloween I saw a kid dressed as Quint. Very well done. Even had a shark on his leg. I told him how cool it was and he said “do you even know who I’m dressed as?” A little upset I said, “you’re Robert Shaw.” He felt like an idiot

[@nikosvault]

I will stop watching this series if the name of John Williams is not mentioned at least once.

[@MrMann0123]

Yes! Nothing in Star Wars.

[@MrMann0123]

They do. Phew

[@billymuellerTikTok]

17:05 yes, there is... Psycho... which was ONE note

[@ermpson5799]

38:05 this is why I would consider Jaws a disaster movie. It follows the formula of one person trying to get the town to respond to an environmental threat but no one listens until it's too late.

[@MrMann0123]

Top ten or I'm flipping a desk and getting a bigger boat

[@roquefortfiles]

Close Encounters was not shot on 65mm. The visual effects were. Then a one step reduction print was made to marry the visual effects to the live action shot on 35mm. So the visual effects were always maintained at higher resolution.

[@fiwebster9814]

I met Peter Benchley when I was in college in New Jersey, in 1975 in fact. Spent an afternoon with him. He was the son of better writer Robert Benchley, a legacy that was kinda hard on him. He wore two buttondown shirts, one outside of the other, the way Steve Bannon often does, but he pullef it off much better. He was a bit too hearty-masculine for 20-year-old girly me, but I liked how passionate he was about the negative spotlight the movie placed on sharks. I've been into sharks since early childhood. Later on I became an activist for shark conservation, even helped get some anti-finning laws passed. Unless I missed it, the Cinefix crew didn't talk about Peter Benchley's cameo in the movie. He played a TV reporter on the beach.

[@courto1308]

I always think of jaws as a solid example of a movie that's better than the book.

[@happybirthdaypaulie8584]

The 1970’s were full of lucky mistakes. The 2020’s are full of purposeful atrocities.

[@paulas2218]

I read the book when it came out, and watched it in the theater when it came out. You had to wait in line if you wanted to see it! The chick I went with wet herself when the shark jumped up in the chumming scene! Great movie!

[@richardscanlon4210]

I saw Jaws in the theater when it first came out. I never thought that Brody was looking at an appendectomy scar. I always thought it was a wound he got on the job as a NYC cop, which may have also contributed to him leaving NYC for Amity. He just didn't want to talk about the circumstances that led to the wound like it was a heroic moment and he was too humble to bring it up. Of course i may be completely wrong but i like my version better.

[@samfisher6606]

I love this movie so much. The first time I saw it was for an English 101 class where I had to watch this movie and then write a 2000-word review. I saw Michael Shaw's _The Shark is Broken._ I really liked the play but I had some issues with it. Shaw gave himself (playing his dad) all the dramatic speeches and as good as Shaw was playing his dad, he couldn't really carry the speeches. It was maybe 15-20 minutes too long. Finally, throughout the entire movie, they are trying to film the _Indianapolis_ speech and Roy Schieder is the one keeping a cool head as opposed to Shaw and Richard Dreyfus constantly arguing. Scheider has one scene where he nearly loses it when he is by himself. That should've been the climax of the play. Not them finally getting Shaw's _Indianapolis_ speech right.

[@MrMann0123]

OOHHH all together!

[@jphilb]

Yes. Good to see them all together. Better interaction.

[@shamrockballs1066]

Howard Sackler conceived of the Indianapolis as motivation for Quint. Milius wrote a really long version of a speech for Quint however the version in the movie was written by Robert Shaw.

[@ZonkerRoberts]

Wow, I never noticed the "diopter shot" before! (I'd known about its use in All the President's Men from 1976 - they may have copped that trick from Spielberg.)

[@kingusernamelxixthemagnificent]

According to Carl Gottlieb, the screenwriter and an actor in the movie, the Indianapolis speech was penned by multiple people, but the finished version was the product of Robert Shaw who compiled the best parts and added his changes. Truth is perhaps more muddled. In any case, I recommend all fans to read Gottliebs book on the making of the movie.

[@MrMann0123]

Possibly my number 1

[@roquefortfiles]

Joe Alves has said that every single story boarded shot of the shark was photographed. It simply took forever because of holidaying yachts on the horizon. Jaws is a great film not by fluke but because of good writing. Spielberg was not going to do the film unless he was able to keep the shark from being fully revealed until the third act.

[@jphilb]

How many people have never seen this movie and know nothing about it other than the name AND are still afraid of sharks? In their defense, getting eaten is a bad way to go.

[@branagain]

Before Jaws, John Williams did the score for all the 70s disaster movies like Towering Inferno and Poseidon Adventure.

[@daffyrwt]

Even though Spielberg hasn't made a pure horror movie really since Jaws, he's always had the horror sensibility. Look at the Indiana Jones series; face melting scene, the religious ceremony from Temple of Doom (which the movie itself is directly responsible for the PG13 rating), the accelerated aging scene in Crusade. Then you have other examples later on like Jurassic Park is essentially a slasher movie with dinos, the beach of Normandy scene in Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List is about the Holocaust ('nough said), War of the Worlds also has a sense of horror even though you think of it as sci-fi disaster flick first, and also the spider scene from Minority Report has a great sense of dread and tension which takes place in the grimiest of ghettos. I mean, he never walked away from horror, he just found ways to utilize horror as a tool in other kinds (non-horror) movies.

[@BLUEDELUCA]

In my mid twenties i came to the definitive conclusion that JAWS was my favourite film, before that i always cited Godfather 2 but i realized i always threw JAWS on, i would fall asleep to it…..to me it is the perfect film and for some reason i would catch heat for making that statement. I think a lot of people have only watched JAWS while it was on TV.

[@Mr.Goodkat]

When you caught heat for it, what would they say?

[@shauntrek]

Nicholas Cage should be the guy who says "A whaaaat?" to Hooper.

[@elizabethpalladino8301]

Proto Steven Spielberg: Made for TV Movie "Duel" with Dennis Weaver v.s. the monster truck. I love "Duel," which I believe is right before "Jaws."

[@fiwebster9814]

I always think of Duel & Jaws as a great double feature. Spielberg learned while making Duel how to make a big long stiff unknowable monster, more in the imagination than on the screen, into a memorable menace.

[@MrMann0123]

I remember as a kid that you didn't have to rush to see a film, it would be there at least a month

[@6thwilbury2331]

Wow, is it not like that anymore? I rarely go to the actual theater anymore... no concept for that kind of thing. That's crazy.

[@sandrajewitt6050]

I was too young to see this movie when it came out. We were on vacation, and I found a copy of the novel where we were staying. I read it on the beach. I do not recommend reading about a shark attack followed by a swim in the ocean. Something touched my foot and I freaked out.

[@roquefortfiles]

The barrels were in the script to begin with. They were in the book. They were not a function of the shark not working. They were used to ramp up the suspense. The shark shows up in the third act because it was written that way. Not because it didn't work.

[@Saul.2910]

Honestly, this is a perfect movie to me. Dont think it could be any better. Btw, doesn’t Hooper get eaten in the book? Been awhile since I read it!

[@markgodleman7709]

In the book the shark breaches and crashes on to the back of the Orca, then Quint gets his foot caught in ropes attached to harpoons in the shark and gets pulled under the water and drowns. The shark swims away, comes back for Brody but then just dies. It slips down into the depths with Quint trailing behind him.

[@KMHill]

Love this series, but the sound quality is terrible. Given the length of each episode, the sound is headache inducing.

[@PhilMoskowitz]

5:55 - "...and then I wanted to be a vicious Nazi genocidal murderer".

[@shamrockballs1066]

In the novel Quint drowns and the shark dies from exhaustion.

[@DevinJHiggins]

"I was told there would be no math in the making of this TorF..."

[@aaronrodriguez4329]

Cal’s mic seems a little off. Great episode though.

[@ckellyedits]

So Mean Girls ISN'T on the actual list? People, what are we even doing here

[@elwyn5150]

7:04 Maybe the shower scene from Psycho

[@MrMann0123]

I really resent that this film is 50 next year... because it is my age

[@fiwebster9814]

I don't get it. When Jaws turns 50 next year, I turn 70. I don't resent this film for being in the Zeitgeist my whole adult life. I treasure it. But maybe you're kidding.

[@gullytiger]

Nic Cage gets a JAWS nod for being in the Indianapolis movie … missed opportunity guys

[@andreraymond6860]

In the book it's the barrels that kill the shark. It finally tires itself out dragging those damned barrels and sinks as it tries to come at Brody. Also Hooper dies first, before Quint..

[@CornishCreamtea07]

You, and Patrick H Williams, both make a Jaws video in the same week.

[@billymuellerTikTok]

the shark "attacking" the cage scene was filmed BEFORE the movie and the movie was written around it... it was a happy accident... the shark wasn't attacking the cage, the shark got stuck in the cage and was trying to fight its way out of it

[@lyndoncmp5751]

Yes, filmed in February 1974 off Dangerous Reef, South Australia by Ron and Valerie Taylor. Spielberg wanted more footage so they went back in March but they were threatened by locals to not chum the sharks. They tried again in April but bad weather forced them to quit. Filming on Martha's Vineyard began in May.

[@MichaelChanning]

Nick Cage goes into the movie... shark's in the movie... our shark.

[@claytongraham562]

The shark not working takes it from Scream to Psycho.

[@The13thKnight]

Come in guys Nic Cage is obviously gonna stand in for Bruce

[@CLDJ227]

Funny y'all make this video after Patrick H Williams did his on this film 🤣 🤣 .

[@TDawgBR]

Much more likely that this was already filmed before Patrick's video was released - though I'm, not sure if it got an earlier release to his Patrons or Nebula subscribers. But yes it's amusing none the less.

[@BeakyGamerGrandma]

Okay this is messing with me. I genuinely didn’t even realize these were two different videos in my subscription feed. I thought one was a teaser. What the actual …

[@paulstroud9686]

in the book, Hooper has an affair with Brody's wife and Hooper is killed at the end.

[@daffyrwt]

I'm shocked to find out that Dazed and Confused didn't land in the community season... which may mean it's not even on the list which is inexcusable. Having just rewatched it two nights ago for the first time in a long time, that movie not only belongs on this Top 100 list but should've been in this season of community. Honestly i thought they would go that way this week considering it's the toking season right now... fuckin' Dan!! ugh lol.

[@johnnyd101]

physco, you recognise with just one note

[@paradisecity0406able]

Watching this movie while eating Buffalo Wild Wings

[@MrMann0123]

Buuuuut if the shark worked would Spielberg see it is crap and still make the edit we saw?

[@SnabbKassa]

This is ultimtely a pro-lockdown movie before lockdowns were a thing. Close everything because the shark can't just swim to a different beach, right?

[@riparianlife97701]

The film was an ecological disaster from the POV of sharks. Everyone went nuts trying to exterminate them.

[@gymdave199]

What does MVP stand for ?

[@AlainSTO]

Clint's #1!?

[@robertpierce6436]

Nick Cage as the shark.

[@CornishCreamtea07]

To be fair to Robert Shaw, a lot of production involved sitting around waiting. What else was he supposed to do to pass the time, there were no smartphones back then.

[@lyndoncmp5751]

Yep. He said he would drink to relieve the boredom. I think I would have too.

[@andrewsmith8661]

The correct answer is modern day Nicholas Cage as the shark.

[@LukasKonrad-pt4uv]

Nick cage as Bruce the shark

[@BLUEDELUCA]

I also think if the shark worked they would have edited most of it out anyway.

[@billymuellerTikTok]

Spielberg also said he'd only do the movie if he can't show the shark until the second half

[@rocko7711]

❤