Every documentary about “Jaws” mentions the constant delays, malfunctions, arguments, etc. that caused Universal to continuously be frustrated with the production. If Jaws was such a pain in the ass, why exactly didn’t Universal abandon it? It sounds like it was costing them a ton of money. Was Spielberg’s connection to Sid Sheinberg what saved them?
shareIt was mostly Spielberg. They loved their new kid wunderkind as he was the opposite of difficult directors like William Friedkin.
They also knew it would be a very difficult shoot so they gave him the whole summer to figure it out. I think Universal took a good look at the success of French Connection, Godfathers, and The Exorcist and thought Jaws/Spielberg was a gamble worth taking.
They also knew it would be a very difficult shoot so they gave him the whole summer to figure it out. I think Universal took a good look at the success of French Connection, Godfathers, and The Exorcist and thought Jaws/Spielberg was a gamble worth taking.
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All likely so. This was also the era of "the blockbuster movie being made from the bestselling novel." The Godfather and The Exorcist were from huge best selling books, Jaws was a huge bestselling book, so Universal knew they had a movie that a LOT of people wanted to see.
I do recall that the paperback (with a cover very similar to the movie poster -- exactly the same?) was a popular beach read the summer BEFORE the summer that Jaws came out. The summer of 1974 created hype for the movie a year away -- articles in People magazine that summer, for instance.
And indeed Sid Sheinberg had faith in Spielberg. Yep, he'd cast Mrs. Sheinberg as Mrs. Brody but she WAS right for the part and ALL of the Universal brass knew Spielberg "had something." The TV movie Duel had proved it , as had his first feature, the technically adroit if downbeat and depressing The Sugarland Express(but then almost ALL major 1974 films were downbeat and depressing, less Mel Brooks and some other stuff.)
And: In some ways, the ongoing saga of the making of the movie became publicity FOR the movie. Famously, the shark wasn't in the finished movie a lot. The land scenes weren't THAT hard to film. It was the shark AND the filming on the ocean(not very far from shore at all) that kept up delays.
'I do recall that the paperback (with a cover very similar to the movie poster -- exactly the same?) was a popular beach read the summer BEFORE the summer that Jaws came out.'
The LAST place I'd read that book now! 😂
'And indeed Sid Sheinberg had faith in Spielberg. Yep, he'd cast Mrs. Spielberg as Mrs. Brody...'
You had me checking there!
The LAST place I'd read that book now! 😂
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Ha. And think about it..in the summer of 1974, people were READING Jaws at the beach and getting scared to go in the water.
One year later in the summer of 1975, people were SEEING Jaws -- whereever (maybe in a big city) and getting scared to go to the beach and into the water.
In my case, I was at a summer vacation home in the summer of 1975, so I saw Jaws NEAR the beach on opening day at a matinee with friends, and there was plenty of daylight left after the showing to go change into swimsuits and go IMMEDIATELY down to the beach and test our mettle.
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'And indeed Sid Sheinberg had faith in Spielberg. Yep, he'd cast Mrs. Spielberg as Mrs. Brody...'
You had me checking there!
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Oops...Mrs. SHEINBERG, of course. What's worse is I couldnt come back in here yesterday to fix the mistake and I saw it on my cell phone. Very embarrassing. Simply a brain malfunction. I made the correction....
'there was plenty of daylight left after the showing to go change into swimsuits and go IMMEDIATELY down to the beach and test our mettle.'
And did you go in the water?
'Simply a brain malfunction. I made the correction....'
👍 Easily done! I know!
Indeed, the cover of the book had the same picture...I read it that summer, too, as an impressionable seven year old!
shareIndeed, the cover of the book had the same picture...
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I thought so. They simply turned the book cover INTO the movie poster the next year.
(Simliarly, Alfred Hitchcock saw the cover for the hardback version of Psycho in 1959 -- with the entire front cover filled with the "famous slashed PSYCHO logo" and paid for two things (1) rights to the book story and (2) rights to the book LOGO -- so the movie matched the book in logo and made history, just like the Jaws cover/poster.)
But back to Jaws: Earlier in 1974, Jaws came out in hardback and the same concept (shark swimming upwards at naked female victim) was rendered in a less realistic, more cartoonish way...and against a total black background.
They rushed out a paperback by summer 1974 with that great, realistic and COLORFUL rendering of the shark attack and...boom.
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I read it that summer, too, as an impressionable seven year old!
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Its great "growing up reading" -- if you can read well enough, you can take in some pretty R-rated stuff on the printed page at a very young age.
And the book was far more graphic "in the imagination" than the movie on screen. In the opening attack on the naked woman, author Peter Benchley discusses in clinical, medical detail just how much of her leg and lower body the shark has bitten away on his first move. The woman reaches down to touch her body and feels the ragged torn flesh left behind. Etc. A REALLY gross read, that scene.
Hooper dies in the shark cage in the book and HE gets a graphic verbal depiction of the shark's jaws clamping down on his midsection and squeezing all his stomach viscera into mush....
A really gory read. They could not have filmed that and gotten a PG.
"And the book was far more graphic "in the imagination" than the movie on screen"
For sure, I distinctly remember(even though it was fifty years ago) a scene involving the subplot(not in the movie) of Hooper banging Brody's wife and a description of her "glistening vagina" that was pretty heady stuff for someone my age!
Books back then -- particularly to sell paperbacks -- were BIG on graphic sex scenes. They were "legal pornography for the mind." The Godfather was FILLED with graphic sex scenes, and only two of them made it to the movie and in very reduced form (Sonny banging the bridesmaid; Michael's first night with Apollonia.)
Put another way: to actually get his contract TO write Jaws, Peter Benchley had to put a sex scene into the book.
Quentin Tarantino knew about this requirement in 70's paperbacks, and so when he wrote a paperback version of "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," he wrote a sex scene into the story that does NOT appear in the movie. And he wrote it in the slobbering, salacious manner of the sex scenes in The Godfather and Jaws. And there was a twist: he inserted the scene into the car ride between Brad Pitt's Cliff Booth and the Manson girl -- except Cliff STILL refuses the sex. Its all on the Manson girl's side.
The paperback of The Godfather was very famous in young circles for "pages 28-29" which turn Sonny and the Bridesmaid into a page and a half of symbolic porn.
Yup, I've read the novelization of OUATIH, I quite enjoyed it! Never read The Godfather, though...
shareSpielberg himself considered halting production for a while. Concerned that a half baked movie might harm his career. Zanuck and Brown were vehemently against it as it would result in everyone losing whatever confidence they had and the movie perhaps never getting restarted. Which would be especially harmful to everyone's careers.
shareGotcha. The impression that’s given in the documentaries I’ve seen is that Spielberg was the only one who had anything to lose. I guess that’s not true but that’s why I asked.
shareSpielberg himself considered halting production for a while. Concerned that a half baked movie might harm his career. Zanuck and Brown were vehemently against it as it would result in everyone losing whatever confidence they had and the movie perhaps never getting restarted. Which would be especially harmful to everyone's careers.
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Maybe this accounts for a famous story written somewhere that Universal brass flew "a woman" (Universal staffer? Professional hooker?) out to the Martha's Vineyard location to "placate" the harried and exhausted Spielberg and to keep him happy about his job. This has been documented, never confirmed by Spielberg(who was single at the time.)
By the way, the scenario that Zanuck and Brown "were vehemently against" for Jaws -- shutting it down and starting over -- they DID do with "Jaws 2." A director named John Hancock was fired off of Jaws 2 and replaced with a director named Jeannot Szwarc(who had directed a lot of "Rod Serling's Night Gallery" episodes on the Universal backlot...came aboard. Neither Hancock nor Szwarc were at Spielberg level, and Jaws 2 suffered accordingly as a good movie. Still -- it made money.
roger1 wrote: "Maybe this accounts for a famous story written somewhere that Universal brass flew "a woman" (Universal staffer? Professional hooker?) out to the Martha's Vineyard location to "placate" the harried and exhausted Spielberg and to keep him happy about his job. This has been documented, never confirmed by Spielberg(who was single at the time.)"
From Peter Biskind's book "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls"
"A female friend of a friend was brought out from L.A. for recreational sex. She slept with him, and left".
My best guess is Margot Kidder was the female friend who sent her friend to sleep with Spielberg.
roger1 wrote: "Maybe this accounts for a famous story written somewhere that Universal brass flew "a woman" (Universal staffer? Professional hooker?) out to the Martha's Vineyard location to "placate" the harried and exhausted Spielberg and to keep him happy about his job. This has been documented, never confirmed by Spielberg(who was single at the time.)"
From Peter Biskind's book "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls"
"A female friend of a friend was brought out from L.A. for recreational sex. She slept with him, and left".
My best guess is Margot Kidder was the female friend who sent her friend to sleep with Spielberg.
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This entire story is a reminder that while in Hollywood, MeToo sexual harrassment is a real thing SOMETIMES, there is also a long history of nubile women WILLINGLY giving themselves up for sex for professional reasons.
This woman -- "a friend of a friend"(and a woman friend if it was Kidder) - was quite willing to fly to Martha's Vineyard JUST to have sex with Spielberg that one time and then flew back. Sounds almost like a "professional" to me, but it was the 70's and free love was the thing and...Hollywood.
I've also read that Spielberg and wealthy filmmakers would peruse "model portfolio books" to pick women to date, just call them up and tell them who you are and -- many times if not always -- you get a date with a model.
Stars would also call agents to get actresses phone numbers -- that's how Cary Grant got wife Number Four -- he saw Dyan Cannon in a bikini on a TV show. Michael Caine saw HIS wife to be on a TV commercial, called HER agent. Reversibly, Jamie Lee Curtis saw Christopher Guest as a recurring player on SNL and called HIS agent.
It gets hard to separate the predatory from the romantic in Hollywood, but both exist. With lust as the currency for both.
After Jaws' unprecedented success, Zanuck and Brown would have had fewer qualms about shooting the sequel to the biggest movie of all time on their own terms. Even shutting production down.
But on the first movie, Zanuck and Brown were keen not to let The Sting seem like it was a fluke. Stumbling with a number one best seller property would have been a huge come down. The trouble with the production was bad enough publicity. Shutting down could have really tainted the film. Or worse. No matter how well intentioned it was. As David Brown tells it "If you let them take the film out the camera, you don't know if they'll ever let you put it back in again.
In my opinion Spielberg was such a force of nature, a master showman and business operator they wisely put their faith in him.
Turned out to be a good choice!
In my opinion Spielberg was such a force of nature, a master showman and business operator they wisely put their faith in him.
Turned out to be a good choice!
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There are a lot of "urban legends" about how Spielberg became -- first -- an "in house Universal TV director" and, later, a bigtime movie director, like: "He snuck onto the lot on a daily basis and took an empty desk in an office." But his award winning short film "Amblin'" seemed to get his foot into the door in a professional way, Sid Sheinberg (second in command to Big Boss Lew Wasserman) definitely saw the talent, and the very young Spielberg(who looked even younger) got at least three Universal TV assignments that made "minor key TV history":
Night Gallery (1969) -- directing one of three segments in the TV pilot, and directing Grand Dame Joan Crawford, who approved him to direct and later sang his praises.
Duel (1971) A "less than 90 minute" TV Movie of the Week that PLAYED like one long action sequence: truck chases car, psycho driver chases neurotic regular guy. "Duel" eschewed trying to do lots of dialogue scenes, like a movie -- it was like "the crop duster scene in North by Northwest done as a full length movie."
The first Columbo series episode(1971.) There had been TV movies in 1968 and 1970 of Columbo, but when it "went to series in 1971," it opened with a Spielberg-directed episode with a lot of style.
Hitchcock rather inspired all three of those TV events -- he inspired EVERYBODY in those days, and Hitchcock inspired the suspense sequences in Jaws(Hitchocck's "Vertigo zoom-dolly dizzy POV" is used on Chief Brody reacting to the Kintner boy being attacked...)
CONT
Anyway, Universal knew what and who they had in Spielberg and honestly ...who ELSE could have fought the elements and won. Also..Spielberg made the movie harder to make IN ORDER to make it better: actually shooting at sea all the time(less one scene in a swimming pool at night - the head pop scene). Location shooting at Martha's Vineyard all the time -- no returns to California beaches.
shareInteresting. They certainly made the right choice despite the problems with production. It was a movie about a huge shark and the shark didn’t work very well. I read that the damned thing sunk at one point😄
share“One day, Sheinberg arrived at the location from L.A. He had dinner at Steven’s house, and afterward, the director excused himself and went off into a corner with Gottlieb, who was sharing the house with him, to work on the script for the next day’s shoot. Sheinberg thought to himself, My God! This is the way this is being done? We may have footage that we will never be able to assemble into a movie.
The next day, Sheinberg went to the location, watched Spielberg shoot. During a break, they sat down on the wooden steps of the Kelly House, the cast and crew hotel where the executive was staying. Sheinberg said, “You know, this would be a lot faster and cheaper to shoot in a tank.”
“Well, I want to shoot this in the ocean for reality,” replied Spielberg.
“Your ‘reality’ is costing us a lot of money.”
“I understand that, but I really believe in this movie.”
“Well, I believe in you. I will back you in [either of] two decisions. If you want to quit now, we will find a way to make our money back. If you want to stay and finish the movie, you can do that.”
“I want to stay and finish the movie.”
“Fine.”
But the real hero of this episode was Bill Gilmore, Zanuck and Brown’s line producer who was in charge of the numbers. According to Gottlieb, “The week before [Sheinberg’s visit], Gilmore had calculated the cost-to-date and cost-to-complete, and the picture was over, but not horrendously so. In the intervening week, apparently some stuff came to light, and it was obvious the picture was deeply in trouble. Probably with Steven’s connivance, Bill locked the new budget in his desk, wouldn’t give it to anybody, didn’t let on that it existed. He could have been fired for that. The following week when that budget came out, the brass had already been there and approved, so they couldn’t very well say no, so the picture went on.”
Excerpt From
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls
Peter Biskind
Thank you for that.
shareThe filmed all the land scenes first. They were easy enough to do. It wasn't until they went out to sea that the production became a nightmare. By that point they already had most of the movie in the can and a lot of money already invested. Just let them find a way to finish it, and hopefully enough of the people who read the book will come see the movie that it at least makes its money back.
shareNo they haven’t.
The original budget was $1.5 million, the film topped $9 million. It almost bankrupted Columbia pictures. Spielberg had no track record. He made one small budget film prior.
It’s always been a mystery how an unheard of director was allowed to go 500% over budget, and almost a year over schedule.
We may never know the reason Sheinberg believed in Spielberg. “Only a the leap from the lion's head will he prove his worth." Good thing he did.