Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Murray Hamilton, Lorraine Gary, Carl Gottlieb
On Amity Island a young woman disappears after a late-night skinny dip. When her partial body washes up on shore the next morning, Police Chief Martin Brody is certain it's a shark attack and orders the beaches closed. Concerned more about the town's economy than public safety, the medical examiner and mayor pass it off as a 'boating accident, ' and the beaches are reopened 24 hours later. The mayor insists they remain open for the busy and lucrative 4th of July weekend. When a young boy becomes the second victim, his grieving mother offers a reward to whoever catches and kills the shark. Pandemonium erupts when everyone with a boat frantically hunts the shark for the reward. Chief Brody calls in oceanographer, Matt Hooper who examines the remains of the first victim and surmises she was killed by a large shark. "This was not a boating accident!" Meanwhile, several bounty hunters catch a tiger shark. Town officials are satisfied this is the killer, but Hooper is skeptical. He and Brody cut it open to look for human remains. Finding none, they realise the killer is still out there. At night, Hooper and Brody go out on Hooper's boat to search for the shark. They find the half-submerged vessel of a local fisherman. Hooper scuba dives to investigate the wreckage and removes a large great white shark tooth embedded in the hull. A severed human head pops out of the wrecked hull, and a startled Hooper drops the tooth. The mayor discredits their story and keeps the beaches open for the 4th of July. At the beach, Brody's son barely escapes being attacked and another man is killed. Quint, an Ahab-type local character, offers to kill the shark for $10,000. The mayor, finally convinced there's a shark problem, agrees to hire him.
Continuity mistake: Quint embeds his machete into the wood at the side of the boat, but in the following wideshot the machete is gone. Then as Orca starts to move, when Hooper says, "He's chasing us, I don't believe it," the machete is back. But when the shark leaps onto the boat the machete is gone again, and then as the shark devours Quint the machete is back for him to grab, so he can valiantly stab the shark. (01:44:30)
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.
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?
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.
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.
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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.