MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.
Jaws (1975, 125 minutes)
When a stripped-down crew consisting of police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), marine biologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and a crazed, Ahab-like skipper known as Quint (Robert Shaw) sets out to kill a deadly great white shark, the parallels between Steven Spielberg’s Jaws and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick are inescapable.
As the surf rolls in, about 20 shaggy-haired college kids are finishing off several kegs of beer and passing around the weed, well after midnight. A buzzed blond boy hands a joint to a platinum-haired girl who begins running alongside the picket fence toward the beach. “What’s your name, again?” says the boy, stumbling after her. “Chrissie,” she shouts over her shoulder, as she begins disrobing on the fly. “Where we going?” he asks. “Swimming,” she says, cleanly diving into the first wave she encounters.
Her tardy companion mutters to himself, “I’m not drunk. I just can’t undress myself.” Swimming to within a few yards of a buoy, Chrissie feels something hit her leg hard. “Help me,” she screams as she’s picked up and shaken like a dust mop by a powerful unseen force. She makes one gallant effort to escape before being pulled below the surface. Her companion has passed-out just beyond the tidal line, unaware of what has happened.
Brody, the recently appointed police chief of a New England island town called Amity, is awakened early Sunday morning by his office. “Missing person. Gotta go,” he says to his wife Ellen (Lorraine Gary). “Chief, be careful,” she says. “In this town?” replies the New York City-raised Brody as he jumps into his Amity PD pickup truck. In his office, he questions the blond kid from Saturday night, who’s reported the girl missing.
Attracted by a PD alarm whistle, Brody and the boy sprint down the beach toward a badly shaken deputy. “Oh Jesus!” says Brody at the sight of a girl’s hand protruding from a gelatinous chunk of human torso, now being consumed by dozens of voracious crabs. Convinced this is a shark attack, Brody buys poster paint and brushes to make signs closing the beaches to all swimming.
A limousine with three Amity councilmen drives onto the ferry taking Brody across the harbor where Boy Scouts are swimming for merit badges, unaware of any danger. “Martin, are you shutting down the beaches on your own authority?” asks Mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton). “We’re anxious you’re rushing into something serious,” says the mayor, more concerned with the economic windfall from next weekend’s Amity Island Celebration than public safety. “Amity is a summer town. We need summer dollars.” It’s suggested the girl’s death might have been a boating accident. Reluctantly, Brody agrees to keep the beaches open until he gets the opinion of a marine biologist. In the meantime, a giant predator lurks just off the coast.
