Bride of the Blog
presents
You’re Gonna Need A Bigger Cake: Happy 50th Birthday, Jaws!
This summer, MonsterVox Productions shows a toothy-mouthful of love to Jaws, Steven Spielberg’s ground-breaking creature feature that defined what it means to be a "blockbuster."
I was five or six, crouched behind my parents’ couch. They were watching Jaws on HBO, and I’d snuck out of bed to steal a peek.
For weeks after, I couldn’t dangle my foot off the bed at night, convinced something would bite it off.
As I grew up, Jaws became a go-to VHS (then DVD, then Blu-ray, now 4k) flick for those nights when you just had to bow at the altar of maverick movie-making.
Those who love this movie do not need a refresher in everything that makes it an impossible feat of filmmaking and a beacon of bloody pop-culture awesomeness. So, we invite you to join us in wishing a happy birthday to our 50 favorite things about Jaws! (in no particular order):
Happy 50th birthday to:
- “Bruce” the Shark: the most temperamental of all the film’s cast (even more than Dreyfuss and Shaw!) he hardly ever worked, but when he did, he was gruesome and glorious!
- The yellow barrels: as long as they were there, you knew the shark was too!
- Chief Brody’s iconic cigarette dangling line: “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
- “Fairwell and Adieu to you fair Spanish ladies…”
- Matt Hooper’s beard…and glasses…and hat: really just Matt Hooper in general
- Ben Gardner’s pallid face (sans an eye!)
floating through the bite in his boat.
- Ellen Brody:
the emotional backbone of the film (and she’s gone halfway through!)
- Poor Pippen the puppy (or is it Pippet?)
- Poor Alex Kitner … more delicious than his raft
- Quint’s fingernails on the chalkboard (and his visual aid) “This shark … will swallow you whole.”
- The Mayor’s awful sky-blue blazer with the anchors on it
- Chrissy Watkins, who’s thrashy, screamy, burbly death made some folks walk out of the theatre. (Only 5 minutes into the movie!)
- “Fairwell and adieu, you ladies of Spain…”
- The chum line!
- That weird dude in the rowboat …”You guys okay over there?” (Bye-bye leg!)
- The Orca …
god bless her, she did her best
- Alex Kitner’s mom slapping Brody
- Michael Brody’s birthday present (“Did you hear your father?! Out of the water now! … NOW!”)
- The two fishermen (We better catch somethin’ this is my wife’s holiday roast.”)
- Quint: “Chief … put the fire out, will ya?”
- The good people of Amity Island and their brave battle against 9-year-old karate students
- John William’s score … ominous, adventurous, iconic
- Shawn Brody’s sand castle (“oh, do you know the muffin man …”)
- The shark cage … talk about a forlorn hope
- The boy scout swim (and their sadistic scout master) “Keep your arms up you goofs!” Merit badges were important in 1975.
- “For we’ve received orders for the sail back to Boston …”
- Sailor knots! “Little brown eel comes out of the hole…”
- Quint’s fishing reel clicking
- “That’s some bad hat, Harry.”
- Hooper:
"I'm not gonna waste my time with a man who's lining up to be a hot lunch."
31. “All this machine does, is swim, and eat, and make little sharks, and that’s all.”
32. Hooper pulling a license plate out of the dead tiger shark: “he didn’t eat a car, did he?”
33. Shawn Brody mimicking his dad at the dinner table while Mom watches “Give us a kiss”
34. “You screw around with these tanks and their gonna blow up!” Foreshadowing!
35. The Indianapolis speech. Best monologue in movie history
36. Comparing scars
37. Quint’s laugh
38. Hooper’s laugh
39. “… And so nevermore shall we see you again.”
40. Bruce’s roar. (Sharks roar?!?!?)
41. Deputy Hendricks … who had too much on his plate (“I’m all alone out there!”)
42. The partial remains of Chrissy Watkins. (“…it wasn’t Jack the Ripper”)
43. Fishing with dynamite
44. Ben Gardner: “Boy they’ll wish their fathers’d never met their mothers when they start takin’ the bottoms out and slammin’ into them rocks, boy —"
45. Bruce’s eager teeth (probably the inspiration for SNL’s “Landshark” puppet)
46. Matt Hooper’s underwater screams
47. “Wanna get drunk and fool around?” “Oh, yeah.”
48. “Smile, you sonofa—BOOM!”
49.“Show me the way to go home …”
50. Quint’s gruesome end. Best screen death of all time. CRUNCH!
We’re sure we’ve forgotten at least 50 more things we love about Jaws; so, we’ll save those for the 100th birthday!
In the meantime, we encourage to find the nearest “float showing” of
Jaws, at your local pool, pond, or lagoon. Bring your rafts and innertubes and celebrate the terror of going in the water!
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