Michael Caine?

his quote: "I haven't seen the film, but I've heard its dreadful, but the house it built for me is beautiful", Caine got about $2 million in today's money for a week's work

Caine has worked in some real dogs, like this one, but his was the best performance by far

I heard him say in an interview 20=30 years ago "I'm an actor, it's what I do."




You don't have to stand tall, but you do have to stand up!

I'd rather have had Caine in the film as some kind of "Quint-type" figure. Certainly he could have pulled it off. Hoagie is just a kind of nowhere man, a gambler who is "doomed" to fly his plane for the indefinite future, in order to pay off debts.

I wish there was a way he could have been depicted as a rugged, hard-bitten old seaman in whom Ellen Brody takes an interest. We have both the Scheider character in son Michael and in granddaughter Barsi, and Michael and van Peebles together make a sort of Hooper/scientist character. The film could have used a bit of a surrogate "Quint" and had a ready-made possibility in Caine, who could have maybe had an edge of danger, but ultimately be a good-hearted hero-type.

For example, it could have been Quint/Caine who sets out to get that evil shark and who also rescues Michael and van Peebles (along with Ellen, who overcoming her oceanophobia has joined the boys on the research boat)...

I know, it's too late now and my speculations are probably corny, but maybe not as corny as having Caine be a Likeable Loser in the movie as released - a character that could potentially have been transformed into a modified - and therefore much more colorful - "Quint figure"... A character who could have put some sea salt into this rather bland recipe of a film...

Despite it being a completely terrible film, it does have one saving grace, and that is Michael Caine. Not his best work at all, but he is pretty much the only one that gives the film any personality. I give him credit for that.