Jaws

Question: At the end of the movie, as the credits roll, and in the background, we see Brody and Hooper paddling their way to shore on those 2 yellow barrels. Would I be right to assume this is probably not actually Scheider and Dreyfuss, but instead, 2nd unit filming this with stand-ins for those two? Knowing Spielberg at that time, maybe he did use Scheider and Dreyfuss. If 2nd unit, anyone know who the stand-ins were?

Question: There are two scenes on the boat after they have seen the shark and Brody has a panicked look, while in the background a shooting star passes right behind him. This happens twice, but it's in the day time. Was it real?

Answer: Although the 1995 documentary "The Making of Jaws" claims that the shooting star was real, the fact is that the shooting-star background effect is a Steven Spielberg trademark in most of his films (first noticed in "Jaws," but also appearing in "Close Encounters," "E.T. The Extraterrestrial," "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," "Saving Private Ryan" and others). Spielberg has always had a fascination with shooting stars, dating back to his childhood, and he works them into almost every film. Http://americanprofile.com/articles/steven-spielberg-shooting-stars-movies/.

Charles Austin Miller

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.

Question: Instead of going under water and trying to poison Jaws in the shark cage, couldn't he have been harpooned with the poison from the boat just as easy?

mozeus5

Chosen answer: As mentioned in the movie, the posion was in the needle and the shark's hide was too tough for the needle to penetrate. Hooper had to go in the water so that he could get the needle into the shark's mouth, where the flesh was less tough.

Kevin Howard

Question: In one of the missing/deleted scenes, Quint heads into the Amity Music Store to get some spools of piano wire. The proprietor of the store is a character named "Katie." Who plays her?

Answer: Dorothy Fielding.

lionhead

Question: Matt Hooper shows up to check in on Brody, bringing two bottles of wine (one bottle of both red and white). Can anyone identify what brand wine is it? They look to both be the same brand, but I've never quite been able to make out the brand. Looks like "ABC", or something like that. I assume it's a real brand, though wonder if the company is still in business.

Answer: The red wine's brand is Barton and Guestier. The label has the initials, BG, on it. It's one of the oldest wine companies and it's still around. I can't tell what the white wine is, so I don't know if it's the same brand.

Bishop73

Answer: Agree with the other answer but would add that while the entire cast thought Robert Shaw was a charming and pleasant man, his chronic alcoholism caused problems and tensions on the set. I remember a TV interview with Richard Dreyfuss saying he once lost his patience with Shaw during the production, strongly telling him to just stop drinking after Shaw commiserated about his problem. That may have been the source of the feud rumor.

raywest

Answer: Simply put, they didn't; rumors of a feud between them got blown out of proportion over the years. Richard Dreyfuss himself said that he and Shaw got on famously throughout the shoot, and that there was one altercation between them that was an isolated incident. "It's not true, and where that started I don't know, but trust me, Robert Shaw wouldn't countenance that idea of a feud, forget it." You can read the interview with Dreyfuss from 2019 here: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainment/celebrity-interviews/jaws-legend-richard-dreyfuss-reveals-17325959.

Question: In one scene when the Orca is chasing after the shark so Quint can harpoon it a second time, Brody and Hooper are both smiling. What are they smiling for?

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: Adrenaline rush. Also, Hooper's thrilled to participate in the chase of the largest great white he's ever seen, while Brody's excited that they'll soon kill the shark that's claimed many of the lives he was supposed to protect.

Question: In one of the Orca scenes, when Quint shot a line and barrel into Jaws from the rear of the boat, the barrel then had to travel over the boat and almost hit Brody in the head. If you look closely, you can see his glasses getting ripped off by the barrel. Was this staged or an actual near-miss, just inches from his head?

Answer: We cut from Hooper fighting to untie the cleat, to the shot of the barrel launching past Brody's head. At the start, the camera has Brody in profile. In stop motion, you can briefly see that he's wearing the arms of his glasses on the (outside) of his ears - so they're not hooked to his face. He looks over his right shoulder (toward the approaching barrel) then whips his head left, toward the camera, and slings off his glasses, for a great effect.

Question: Who came up with the idea of calling the shark Bruce?

Answer: Bruce Raymer, who has been Steven Spielberg's lawyer for over 40 years, has the distinctive honor of being the namesake of the mechanical shark models, which were all nicknamed Bruce by Steven Spielberg.

Super Grover

Question: What is the name of the vehicle Chief Brodie drives?

Answer: It's a 1973 Chevrolet K5 Blazer with a full convertible removable top.

Sierra1

Question: In the scene where Quint is sitting with the fishing pole, Brody is trying to learn a knot. What kind of knot?

Answer: Its a bowline. Quint's instructions with the eel coming out of the hole etc., are a common way to teach a bowline with an eel in place of a rabbit. A bowline is a popular fixed loop knot used everywhere.

Question: In the pond scene, after the shark attacks the poor man on the paddle boat, why didn't he go after Michael too? He just swam past him, sparing him.

Connor Noiles

Answer: In addition, the original scene called for Michael to be in the arms of the man, with the man in the jaws of the shark. Michael is carried across the water and the released by the man just before the shark takes him under. Spielberg ultimately felt that this was over the top gruesome and changed the scene.

Chosen answer: The horror of "Jaws" was not so much the physical trauma of being eaten alive as it was the terror of not knowing who would be next. So, we see the panicking pier fisherman spared although the shark could have easily taken him; we see the shark randomly select the Kintner boy while sparing hundreds of other terrified people in the water at Amity's public beach; and we see the shark just barely spare Michael after eating the man in the pond. Although he wasn't physically harmed, Michael was hospitalized in shock after the encounter with the shark; so, he obviously suffered unimaginable terror. It's that "almost eaten" factor that sells the film. Captain Quint's story of the USS Indianapolis drives home the point that waiting to be eaten is as terrifying as actually being eaten, and that's what film maker Steven Spielberg very successfully conveyed all throughout the movie.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: Excellent answers, and just to add one more point: the shark in the movie is not a normal one. He doesn't act just out of hunger, but also out of sheer malevolence: in fact, just like in the novel, it's implied there's *something* about him, something almost supernatural. He may have spared Michael because he had just secured a meal, to escape the gathering humans before they can harm him... or because killing the boy wouldn't have entertained him sufficiently.

Jukka Nurmi

Question: Roy Scheider, in the first Jaws film, wears a unique brand of aviator frames, which do not appear in Jaws 2, or anywhere else for that matter - they are very distinctive in that they have a thicker border than ordinary aviator frames from that time, and the edges of the metal are beveled... What glasses are these? What brand? What model?

Answer: RayBan.

Question: Why did the boat's engine explode exactly? Hooper says he had burnt out the bearings, but how is this possible? It's not like a car engine where if you hold it at max revs for ages it'll seize up, this was a marine engine, they are designed to run at max revs all day. Hooper also didn't have any issues going at full throttle the previous day when they first got a barrel on the shark, so what changed?

Answer: It was most likely going full throttle that caused the engine to burn out. Besides, the boat isn't brand new, from the look of it, it should have been put in the scrap yard years ago.

Answer: There were many contributing factors in the demise of the engine. When Quint and Hooper are working on the engine the day previously, Hooper says "The injectors have been scorched by the saltwater in the fuel" and then Quint mentions something about the housing being bent. Working it too hard was just simply too much for her and she blew.

Answer: This is a Hollywood movie, and Hollywood loves explosions in their movies. The Mythbusters tested a number of explosions in movies (mostly involving cars), showing it was highly improbable they would blow up as depicted in a film. I suspect this is the case in "Jaws." Spielberg was going for dramatic visual effect rather than reality. The same could be said about the scuba tank blowing up in the shark's mouth when Brody shot it with a rifle. The tank would never explode like that just from a gun shot and was yet another fallacy the Mythbusters debunked.

raywest

Question: The other night me and some friends were arguing whether or not the shot that Brody makes to blow the tank up to kill Bruce was possible, or would it be too hard to make?

liezander

Chosen answer: It would certainly be very difficult, with the shark moving and hitting the tank while slightly underwater. But it wouldn't be impossible.

Greg Dwyer

Answer: This theory was tested on "Mythbusters" and the myth was "busted", twice. https://mythresults.com/mythbusters-vs-jaws.

wizard_of_gore

The Mythbusters did indeed bust that myth by failing to cause the tanks to explode. In case anyone disputes the technology, they used the same type of scuba tanks, rifle, and ammunition that were used in the movie.

raywest

Answer: While taking the shot and hitting the tank could be possible, it would not result in an explosion.

What was shown on Mythbusters was the tank, when filled with compressed air, became a flailing projectile as the air escaped from a bullet hole.

raywest

Question: Here's a question that's never been answered. After Captain Quint addresses the Amity city council, he bids them good day and leaves, and a dog and a little guy wearing a cap obediently follow Quint down the hall. For a split-second, we also see this little guy's cap pass before the camera inside Quint's dock-front quarters. Who was this little guy, Quint's first mate? We don't know, because that little guy is never seen again after the dock quarters scene.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: I believe you see the same person helping prepare the Orca before it starts setting out. He has Quint's M1 slung over his shoulder.

Chosen answer: The man is never identified. It is never stated in the movie that he is Quint's first mate or that he works for him. He could be or may just casually know Quint, and is probably also a local fisherman.

raywest

He is Quint's deckhand/first mate. The fellow who was cast was not an actor, just a local character, whose dog followed him everywhere (Spielberg got a kick out of him and cast him). This was clarified in a scene where he quits rather than go on the boat after Jaws, which was cut out of the film but can be found on YouTube.

Question: I have been wondering this for ages. In the scene where everyone is on the beach, Ellen Brody sees her husband Chief Brody and waves at him. He waves back. Then she mouths something completely incomprehensible and the chief nods and walks away. What did she say?

Gavin Jackson

Chosen answer: She mouths "I've got Shaun", so he doesn't worry. Alternatively "I've got your order" as she points to the food counter.

Question: Does anyone know what Quint caught with his fishing line? Quint is adamant it's a shark, whereas Hooper, who's a shark expert, doesn't believe it is. Quint managed to reel it in somewhat, and given that Bruce was able to pull the entire Orca later on, I'd say there's no way Quint would be strong enough to reel Bruce in, so that kinda rules him out. So what on Earth was it that they actually caught?

Answer: It was Bruce. Quint doesn't reel him in as such, rather just reels in some of the line that was slacking. Bruce even pulls the line with sufficient force to frighten Quint, making him exclaim "Jesus Christ...!" The piano wire had been cleanly bitten through, and as Quint points out no small fish could do that. Further, the soundtrack kicks in when the line is tugged. Spielberg specifically stated he only ever used music to indicate the presence of the shark, hence no music during the earlier fake shark scare.

Jukka Nurmi

Answer: It was never revealed in the film exactly what it was. It's possible that it was another shark or some large game fish that broke the line. Mostly it's a plot device to foreshadow the coming encounter with "Bruce," and it creates suspense and tension. It also highlights the growing conflict between Quint and Hooper as to who knows more (college educated vs blue-collar smarts).

raywest

Question: When the line breaks Brody's head is cut. It looked like a real cut and he did looked dazed. Was that fake? Or did that really happen by accident?

Answer: There are so many anecdotes regarding the numerous accidents, ad-libs, gaffes, rewrites, mechanical breakdowns, personality conflicts, budget overruns, delays, and offscreen cast and crew antics during production of "Jaws" that you could compile it all into a book (or a movie-mistakes website). Seemingly, every bit of trivia from this film (both real and fabricated) has been published at some point over the last 45 years. But if Roy Scheider ever suffered a real-life head injury in this film, it's not among that collection of trivia; so, it's fairly safe to say that the injury was entirely scripted. In a word, fake.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: When Hooper sees the hole in the hull of Ben Gardner's boat, he uses his knife to pry out the shark tooth. The tooth is located at the bottom of the hole, with its flat root side stuck deep in the wood and its pointy side facing up. It is completely impossible for the shark's tooth to become wedged in the wood this way, while he takes a nice bite out of the wood hull. (00:49:15)

Super Grover

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

Suggested correction: When Hooper uses the knife to pry to tooth out, it took very little effort, suggesting that the tooth wasn't wedged into that spot, but merely just resting in that spot.

The shark tooth was inserted into the wood by the prop crew with its flat root side down, which would have been impossible to have occurred during the attack on the hull. As to the statement that the tooth was "merely just resting in that spot" then Hooper would not have needed to use the blade to remove it from the wood, plus the fact that since it was underwater it would have floated away during the hours after the attack. But it did not float away, so it must have been at the very least snugly fit into the wood hull. Still impossible.

Super Grover

The original mistake says that the root of the tooth was embedded In the wood. Not possible since it should be the sharp end in the wood and the root showing on top (as described in the mistake).

Ssiscool

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Trivia: Quint's boat is named Orca. The orca is the only natural predator the great white shark has (besides humans).

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