Jaws

Jaws (1975)

14 mistakes since 28 Jan '17, 00:00

(48 votes)

Jaws mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Brody sits on the beach watching the crowd in the water before Alex is killed by the shark, he wears a watch on his wrist which disappears a few shots later when he believes he saw something. (00:14:48)

Continuity mistake: When Sheriff Brody is tossing chum to attract the shark, the cigarette between his lips is not lit but when he backs into the bridge of the boat, there is smoke trailing from the cigarette.

MovieFan612

Continuity mistake: When all 3 men are putting the shark cage together for Hooper, and they move the cage over to the side of the boat, Brody is shirtless. Then the next shot where the cage is going into the water, Brody's black T-shirt is back on.

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.

Other mistake: Two errors when Hooper is at the helm...the first is Quint yelling at Hooper "starboard, ain't you watching?"the shark is actually running from the port side of Orca. The second is when Quintbtells Hooper to head SSE...Orca turns to starboard while moving ahead...a SSE course would be a turn to port.

FLKeysSharkDiver

Continuity mistake: When Jaws leaves the pond after the attack its fins go below the water as it approaches the bridge, the scene immediately changes to the bridge, the woman is shouting "shark" and we see the fins go below the water again.

Continuity mistake: When the man gets attacked the long shot shows two of the three boys on top of the upturned boat, then we see the leg sink to the bottom with a trainer on, even though the man was bare footed. Then the camera passes the boy in the water and the other two boys are only just climbing up onto the boat.

Continuity mistake: When the Kitner boy was attacked, the underwater shots show the swimmers treading water in fairly deep water, but the above shots show the kids standing in shallow water.

steven_frankel

Visible crew/equipment: As Hooper says the shark is "back for his noon feeding", you can see the camera and lighting reflected on Brody's glasses.

Revealing mistake: Towards the end, before Quinn is eaten, the shark is "chasing" the boat with 2 barrels. You can see the wire from the boat dragging the barrels off to the right side of the screen.

Revealing mistake: As Quint smashes the radio, then when Brody yells at him, nearby land is reflected in the windows behind them. There is no land in sight both before and after this scene.

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

Other mistake: When Cooper is first examining the remains of Chrissy, the medical examiner takes her remains out of a cupboard of sorts, and carries them to a table. He doesn't struggle, and lifts the tray rather easily yet when Hooper is describing the remains of the body, he says "The torso has been severed mid thorax, the right arm has been severed above the elbow, the left arm, head shoulders sternum and portions of the rib cage are intact" The mistake is that Hooper describes way more of the remains than can have fit in the small tray and or be lifted so easily by the medical examiner.

Video

Continuity mistake: When Quint is up in the crow's nest, Brody tells him "Let Hooper take a turn" (regarding chumming the water). When Quint, while looking down at Brody, says "Hooper drives the boat, Chief", his right arm is across his body and looks to be resting on the safety railing of the crow's nest. When Brody looks up at Quint, his right arm is away from his body and is just holding onto the crow's nest railing with his hand.

Spencer Crouse

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.