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Topic: "Jaws"...Released 35 Years Ago Today
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
![](http://www.film-tech.com/ubbmembers/26c.jpg)
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 06-23-2010 10:02 AM
I saw Jaws in its original release from the balcony of the Fox Theatre in Billings. The screen there was at least 50 feet wide. I can still remember the feelings of suspense generated by that opening scene.
A friend of mine and I were in Billings for a convention of TV dealers (we sold TVs at my day job then) and we were so excited talking about the movie afterward that we missed the exit leading to the hotel we were staying at...so, small-town driver that I was, and late night time with zero traffic that it was, I decided to "backtrack" up the wrong way of an on-ramp to get back to the hotel. Little did I know that the cross-street was divided by a large median, so we wound up going the wrong way on a one-way road. I finally drove the car across the median to get on the right side, got noticed by a cop, got chewed out, but didn't get a ticket...amazing, since I truly deserved one.
Anyway -- the movie is definitely one that is significant in its genre, but it's also significant in that it created the summer blockbuster as we know it today.
One of the best things about it is the way Spielberg was able to create the terror of the shark even though the shark has almost no screen-time in the film. (Add up the footage where you can actually see the shark...I think I read somewhere that it's under two minutes.) This was because the mechanical sharks didn't function properly, but the movie was improved by that.
In those days movies didn't play everywhere at once; we didn't play "Jaws" at the Roxy until December, 1976 -- 17 months after its release!
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