The Big Idea - Jaws
When Steven Spielberg first encountered the story that was to become his first big screen success he was just 27 years old with a handful of television episodes and made-for-TV movies to his credit, including one acclaimed TV production, the thriller Duel (1971), and one theatrical feature, The Sugarland Express (1974). The latter, a Goldie Hawn vehicle, had done poorly at the box office but got him the attention of executives at Universal, the studio that produced it. While in post-production on The Sugarland Express, he stopped by the office of one of the film's producers, Richard Zanuck, where he saw galleys of Peter Benchley's as-yet unpublished novel Jaws sitting on a coffee table. He asked if he could read it. Zanuck said he would love to have Spielberg look at the book, but that they already had a director attached to it.
Zanuck and his production partner, David Brown, bought the book before its publication from Mike Medavoy at ICM with the understanding that a certain ICM client (Zanuck never identified who) would direct. A meeting was set up with Benchley and the potential director, who kept referring to the central nemesis of the book as a whale. After the meeting, Zanuck and Brown said they wanted another director.
Brown later said they would have never bought the book if they had read it twice. "How would we have acquired a book that required a shark to leap on the stern of a boat and swallow one of our actors?"
Spielberg thought the story was very commercial and would make a good monster movie, a "sci-fi potboiler" in his words. Despite Spielberg's aim to make "films" as opposed to "movies," Brown convinced him to take it on by pointing out that a huge commercial success would enable him to make the more serious films he aspired to.
Zanuck went to Lew Wasserman, the head of Universal, and suggested Spielberg to direct. Wasserman liked Spielberg but wondered if he was too inexperienced to handle a picture with so many potential technical and logistical problems. Zanuck convinced him that an unseasoned director like Spielberg would bring something fresh to the project and turn out more than just an ordinary action-adventure movie.
Once he was on board, Spielberg wanted to adapt the book. Benchley's deal with Universal was that he would write the script himself. The draft he turned in was lacking, so Spielberg took a crack at it, turning out an entire draft in two weeks. He later said his script had some very good scenes "and some really awful, horrible ones," bad enough that he felt embarrassed having wasted two weeks of preproduction time working on it. Clearly he needed another writer.
Brown suggested having Howard Sackler, who had written the play The Great White Hope, winner of a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award and the basis for the 1970 film. Spielberg's initial reaction was positive: "Hey, Great White Hope, Great White Shark, perfect casting." His enthusiasm proved well founded. Spielberg liked that Sackler lost the book's love affair between Chief Brody's wife and Hooper the ichthyologist and added the famous Quint speech about the real-life shark attacks on the 900 sailors who had survived the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in 1945. "It wasn't the Jaws that we made, but it was, I'd say, about 65 percent of what was in the movie," Spielberg said. "It definitely moved me forward into saying, 'I'll direct the movie.'" According to Spielberg, Sackler did not want any screen credit. Also uncredited was Spielberg's friend and fellow director John Milius (Dillinger, 1973; Conan the Barbarian, 1982), who expanded Quint's monologue from Sackler's three-quarters of a page to a brilliant but unwieldy ten pages. The speech was eventually trimmed to shooting length by the actor cast to play Quint, Robert Shaw, who had written the play The Man in the Glass Booth.
Joe Alves, the art director for The Sugarland Express, was brought in to the project for his first assignment as a production designer. While script work continued, he and Spielberg decided against filming in studio tanks or with miniatures and optical effects, a decision he later called "naïve," in light of all the problems encountered shooting on the open sea with a full-size shark model.
Spielberg loved the special effects created for the Disney movies The Absent-Minded Professor (1961) and its sequel Son of Flubber (1963). The creator of those effects, Robert Mattey, was hired to tackle the very big issue of the mechanical shark. The veteran craftsman worked at home to come up with a prototype of what would become the submersible platform that would control all the movements of the shark. His small wood-and-metal model showed how the platform could be sunk by pumping water into it and surfaced by filling it with air.
Three full-scale drawings were made of potential mechanical sharks. Like Goldilocks trying out beds in the Three Bears house, Spielberg decided the 18-foot version was too small, the 36-footer too big, and the 24-foot version just right.
David Brown asked Peter Benchley who he would cast in the movie, and the author replied, "Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, and Robert Redford." Brown, however, knew the movie required no stars: "The star of this movie was a fish."
Spielberg first considered Jon Voight for the part of Hooper, then Timothy Bottoms. He later said he may have also spoken to Jeff Bridges about it. "But when I met with [Richard] Dreyfuss, his energy was so kinetic, I thought he was perfect for Hooper." Dreyfuss said Spielberg had told him not to read the book and told him instead the story he wanted to shoot. Dreyfuss thought it was great but didn't want to do it, mostly because he was wary of the difficult shoot that lay ahead. After he saw his most recent film, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974), Dreyfuss thought his performance was terrible and called Spielberg to beg for the job as Hooper. Dreyfuss said he was finally signed after production began.
Spielberg's first choice for Quint was Lee Marvin, then Sterling Hayden; both of them said no. Robert Duvall was interested in the part of Quint early on, but Spielberg (wrongly, he later admitted) thought he would be best as Chief Brody. Duvall, who didn't want a leading man type of role, turned him down. That's when Zanuck and Brown suggested Robert Shaw, whose work they had admired in their production The Sting (1973).
Spielberg thought Joe Bologna would be a great Brody, but he couldn't get Zanuck or Universal COO Sid Sheinberg (who had brought Spielberg into the company) on board with that. The director met Roy Scheider at a party and, based on his performance in The French Connection (1971), decided he was right for it.
There was some question of who would play Mrs. Brody. Zanuck wanted his wife Linda Harrison to play it; Sid Sheinberg won out, securing the role for his wife, Lorraine Gary. Spielberg said he had seen Gary in a TV movie and thought she was very natural. "Of course, Sid Sheinberg had given me my first job, but I really cast Lorraine because she was right for the part. There were a lot of people I couldn't convince, but that was the truth."
by Rob Nixon
