The "Jaws" era is full of nostalgia for me. Back then, I was fond of themed birthday parties. 1974, 13th birthday: "Little House on the Prairie." 1975, 14th birthday: "Jaws." 1977, 16th birthday: "Star Wars."
Of these, "Jaws" was the only one of which I had neither read the book nor seen the movie--for the others, I did both. As a matter of fact, I don't even know whether my sisters (whose idea it was) had seen the movie, only that when they suggested it as a birthday party theme I lunged at it as great. Nowadays whole packs of themed-party merchandise are available, but the only commercially-produced items we had were the t-shirts. The "Time" Magazine cover of the shark served as a model for the cake we ordered at the bakery and also as a party decoration. Everything else--ice cream, cups, napkins--we did entirely by ourselves. We even teased Mom, who was fond of willowware and not so much of sharks, "Look, blue and white, just like you like!" After 42 years, I still have some of our hand-decorated styrofoam cups and a poster my sister drew. When this forum gets picture posting capability, I should share some pictures.
1975 fell during the thirty-year stretch when our town had no movie theater. Anyone who didn't drive had to ride with a friend 30 miles to a town which had a theater, or wait to see, after a movie was out for some time, whether it would play at the local drive-in, which also required a car. If my sisters did go, I was either not invited, or declined. When "Jaws 2" came out, they went to see it with our cousins. I was welcome to accompany them, but declined as, at the time and for many years thereafter, I was hesitant to say the least to view any film the highlights of which consisted of people being eaten by a shark. They came back from "Jaws 2" laughing about how fake some parts looked--the younger sister, in particular, described one victim as looking "like a Barbie doll being splashed around in a bathtub," with sound effects as bad as the visual, and I was still not inclined to see it even for laughs.
When my uncle and his Netflix account were here, we watched a string of Richard Dreyfuss films, but, strangely enough, "Jaws" was not among them. I actually did not see it complete, start to finish, until TCM's 2017 Oscar marathon, by which time I had been to Universal Studios and personally seen Bruce the Shark twice! At several points I was genuinely surprised--by the graphics in the shark video game near the beginning--at a time when people still played real (not video) pinball, and games which were all the rage a few years later looked primitive in comparison. Hair and clothing styles, music, everything enhanced a mostly very suspenseful and well-told story. After all this time, I was delighted to finally see this!
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