In the Terrifying Grip of a Sensational 'Jaws'

Brilliant young director Steven Spielberg has taken the premise of Peter Benchley's best-selling but rather pedestrian novel "Jaws" -- a summer resort community terrorized by the presence of a rogue Great White Shark -- and streamlined it into a new classic of cinematic horror and high adventure. The movie version of "Jaws" is one of the most exciting and satisfying thrillers ever made, and several things are likely to happen when it opens Friday at 500 American theaters, including the Aspen Hill 1, Jenifer 1, Riverdale Plaza, Springfield Mall 1 and Tyson's Cinema in the Washington area.

First, "Jaws" seems almost certain to do that revered Hollywood money-making act known as Going Through the Roof. The production began with a budget of $3.5 million and ended up costing more than $7 million, but given the nature of the film's appeal and the vast number of bookings, it's likely to be in the black by July 4.

A number of factors seem to be converging to make "Jaws" an instant box-office phenomenon, one of those pictures that create lines around the block before the first show on opening day. There's the enormous popularity of the book, which first appeared in February 1974 and has sold an estimated 3.5 million copies. The paperback edition was published in January, in a first printing of over 1.5 million copies, and Benchley helped launch the paperback with a two-week national publicity tour.

Spielberg and Benchley, an extremely personable team, are touring 11 cities in advance of the movie's opening. The stars -- Roy Scheider, who plays the stricken town's police chief, Brody; Robert Shaw, who plays the obsessed sharkhunter, Quint; and Richard Dreyfuss, who plays the young ichthyologist, Hooper -- are also being enlisted to do their bit. If America isn't "Jaws"-conscious this summer, it won't be because of a lack of effort or ingenuity on the part of Doubleday, Bantam or Universal Pictures.

Scare movies seldom fail at the box office. If "Jaws" in book form succeeded in scaring a few million readers, the movie version, which intensifies and heightens the original horror elements and improves the characterizations immensely, is calculated to scare tens of millions. (Given the somewhat surprising PG rating, a few million of them may be children of unsuspecting parents.) In addition, the movie is opening at exactly the right time: it hits the theaters when people are heading for the beaches.

One can imagine suspicious oceanfront entrepreneurs thinking of "Jaws" as a deliberate way to divert the public from beaches to movie houses. "Jaws" is not going to empty the beaches, of course, but it's bound to become part of the culture of life on the American beach in Summer 1975.

As if it needed additional commercial boosters, the movie may also profit from the sort of morbid "luck" that accompanied "The Godfather," which was shooting in New York when gangsters began shooting at each other -- and hitting members of the general public, too. A couple of weeks ago, the wire services carried a story about shark attacks off the Florida coast. A young man who'd had a close call accused the authorities of hushing up earlier sightings and attacks in order not to scare off the summer trade.

This very situation provides the initial dramatic conflict in "Jaws." The mayor of the town Amity persuades the police chief to keep the beaches open after a young woman has been killed by the shark. Everyone hopes in a foolish but understandably self-interested way, that this is an isolated death, that the trouble will simply go away. When it doesn't and the shark kills two more people on the crowded July 4 weekend, the appalled and contrite mayor approves the chief's plan to hunt down the shark. Scheider and Dreyfuss put to sea with Shaw, a bounty-hunting fisherman with a long grudge against sharks, and the movie builds toward its sensational, heart-stopping struggles between men and sea monster.

The imaginary shark of "Jaws" is no pussycat. A few more items like the ones from Florida could send "Jaws" not only through the roof but into commercial outer space.

In the Washington area and most other parts of the country (New York seems to be the principal exception), "Jaws" is also the first major release of the summer film season. Starting the season with a virtually guaranteed blockbuster has enormous advantages for the business as a whole. "Jaws" is exceptionally stimulating entertainment, and one of the things it's bound to help stimulate is movie attendance in general. The summer slate already includes a first-rate new comedy from Woody Allen, "Love and Death," and a new musical comedy-drama from Robert Altman, "Nashville," as much a masterpiece of pathos as "Jaws" is of adventure.

By themselves, "Jaws" and "Nashville" would make this an historic year for American movies. One still looks forward to such promising summer attractions as "Rollerball," "Bite the Bullet," "The Drowning Pool" and the revival of Disney's "Bambi." It could be a rousing filmgoing summer, and in most places "Jaws" will be setting the pace.

Spielberg, 27, made a stunning feature film debut last year with the chase melodrama "The Sugarland Express." His new picture should make him the most sought-after American director since Francis Ford Coppola, who achieved his breakthrough with "The Godfather" at 32. I don't think there's a more exciting talent at work right now than Spielberg, an authentic moviemaking prodigy, and perhaps his worst problem from June 20, 1975, on will be preventing success from making a nervous or artistic wreck of him.