Jaws

Character mistake: In the beginning of the movie, Chrissy goes swimming on the night of July 1. Her remains were found the next morning on July 2. The police report that Brody types up states that the incident happened at 11:50 p.m. On July 1 and that Chrissy's remains were found at 10:20 p.m. On July 2 and not in the a.m. As the movie shows. Also on the police report, it states that Chrissy was removed to the "CORNERS OFFICE" and not the coroner's office. (00:09:30)

Character mistake: When Quint is telling the story of the Indianapolis, he says the ship went down on June 29th. It actually went down at 12:14 a.m. on July 30. (01:32:45)

Jaws mistake picture

Character mistake: During one of the shark scares at the beach, Chief Brody is running along the shoreline telling everyone to get out of the water. There are several frames where the Chief and a man with a moustache are at the water's edge. If you look closely you will notice that the man is smiling and laughing and other people laugh as well. (00:17:30)

Character mistake: When Brody waves at his wife Ellen she says "I've got Shawn." In the next shot he's running after his brother Michael going to the pond, so she has not got him at all. (00:57:50)

Character mistake: Captain Quint tells Hooper and Brody that the USS Indianapolis delivered "the Hiroshima bomb" in 1945. This is a myth that has persisted for decades and right up to the present. To prevent it from being lost in one piece, the Hiroshima bomb was actually delivered in pieces by various means to Tinian Island, where the parts were reassembled before it was carried aboard the Enola Gay to its target in Japan. The USS Indianapolis delivered only the detonator for the bomb. (01:29:00)

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: This isn't a mistake since even you say it is a commonly believed and spoken of myth, so how is the captain repeating a commonly held myth a movie mistake? That would be like calling it a movie mistake if the character of King Arthur said the world was flat.

jimba

I agree with Jason, that it was correct for the character of Quint to have truly believed it. This was submitted as a "character mistake" which is appropriate. According to MM's guidelines a character mistake is "something a character wrongly states as fact... Something more significant than a minor error anyone could make."

Super Grover

Suggested correction: Quint likely believed the ship carried the bomb. It's unlikely he would know the details of an intricate plan to deliver the pieces separately. It may not have been factually correct, but it was correct for the character to have believed it.

Character mistake: When Chief Brody is talking to Mayor Vaughn on the ferry, before he says "I appreciate it I'm just reacting to what I was told" he calls him "Harry" when his real name is Larry. (00:13:10)

mightymick

Character mistake: When Hopper is in the cage you can tell it isn't him by the size of the scuba tank on his back and size of that kill stick he was going to use. The tank and kill stick are almost as tall as the person in the cage. When on deck and loading into cage in scene before that the items aren't that tall.

Character mistake: In the scene on the boat, when Quinn, Hooper and Brody are gathered below, Quinn gives the date about the USS Indianapolis sinking as June 29, 1945. It is actually July 29, 1945. The first atomic bomb wasn't actually detonated until July16, 1945 in Alamogordo, New Mexico making it impossible for the Indianapolis to be delivering the bomb in June.

RickManley

Character mistake: Chief Brody and Hooper go to the wharf to dissect a large tiger shark and examine the contents of its stomach. Finding nothing unusual, Hooper recommends they go offshore that night to search for the real killer shark because "he's a night feeder." Coming from a marine biologist, that remark really makes no sense. Hooper knew that, in addition to eating Chrissie the midnight swimmer, the shark also ate Pippin (the black Labrador retriever) and the Kintner boy in the middle of the day at a public beach. Based on all available evidence, the shark was no more likely to feed at night than in broad daylight.

Charles Austin Miller

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: The statement is correct, the shark was a night feeder, as opposed to just being a day feeder, meaning the shark will likely be hunting at night.

Bishop73

Again, given all the evidence (including the daytime attacks), Hooper had no more reason to suspect the shark was a night feeder than a day feeder.

Charles Austin Miller

Except that's not what the conversation was about, he wasn't speculating on whether the shark was more likely to attack during the day or the night. He simply states they should go out at night to find the real shark responsible for the attacks because that shark will be feeding at night as well (and by going out at night they wouldn't have to face the daytime crowd). If he made an statement such as "the shark isn't a day feeder" or "the shark is strictly a night feeder", those statements could be considered mistakes.

Bishop73

Even when Chrissie was killed at night and two men later on in the movie tried to catch the shark for the reward...at night?

Jaws mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Hooper wears rimless eyeglasses, with the arms either attached at the upper corners of the lenses or at the sides of the lenses. If this didn't happen between shots within the same scenes, it could be presumed that Hooper has two different pairs of glasses and switches between the two, but they do indeed change between shots, such as when Mrs. Kintner slaps Brody, or even later, on the Orca. (00:36:05)

Super Grover

More mistakes in Jaws

Hooper: You know those eight guys in the fantail launch out there? Well, none of 'em are gonna make it out of the harbor alive.

More quotes from Jaws

Trivia: Actor Robert Shaw took inspiration from and based his performance of Captain Quint on an eccentric, real-life Martha's Vineyard fisherman named Craig Kingsbury. Steven Spielberg was deeply impressed by Kingsbury, also, and actually cast him in the role of fisherman Ben Gardner. Beyond that, Kingsbury's colorful language around the set was often written into the dialogue of Captain Quint and Ben Gardner.

More trivia for Jaws

Question: When Quint and Hooper are comparing leg scars, they are sitting near each other with legs overlapping. The shot moves to Brody, then back to Quint and Hooper at the table, sitting apart. Quint is fastening his pants, buckling his buckle, and zipping his zipper. He obviously showed them something that was edited out of the movie. What was it?

Rick Neumann

Answer: Possibly a scar from having his appendix removed, I've been told.

The appendix shot is Brody - he is feeling inferior as the other two share tales of the sea and the only scar he has is from his appendix being removed.

Chosen answer: I just watched this on DVD. As the men were supposed to be comparing their body scars to one another, it appears that Quint had just shown one that was hidden beneath his pants. Whatever this was, it was edited out. When movie scenes are originally filmed, they are usually much longer in length than what is in the final version. After editing, some actions, dialogue, and character movements are deleted either to shorten the running time, for better storytelling flow, or the action was considered unnecessary to the scene. Also, film censorship at this time (mid-1970s) was far stricter than it is today, and it may have been that a review board deemed it inappropriate to have a character unzipping his pants in that manner and insisted it be removed from the final version.

raywest

I believe it was Brody, not Quint that was looking down his pants. And I believe that he was embarrassed that his (maybe appendix) scar was not as big or impressive as Quint and Hoopers.

Watch it again and as Quint is scooting back over to his spot he's fastening his pants, but no explanation is given.

I thought Brody had been shot as a cop in the big city (and that was why he took the job in a quiet, small town) and that in this scene he was looking at the scar and comparing it in his mind to the scars the other guys were showing but not saying anything to them about it.

Answer: After Brody looks down at his abdomen scar (probably an appendix scar) the camera switches back to Quint and Hooper. As Hooper starts talking, watch Quint. He is buttoning his pants and then struggles to zip them up. He leaves his belt unbuckled. I've seen Jaws more times than I can count - starting the year it premiered in 1975 - and I didn't notice this weirdness until a few years ago.

More questions & answers from Jaws

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.