Daa-dam, Daa-dam 50 years of "Jaws" - and still a cult shocker
50 years ago, "Jaws" was released in cinemas. It marked the birth of the Hollywood blockbuster. A significant part of its success is based on the shark's miserable failure.
19.06.2025, 22:40
05.07.2025, 20:17
dpa
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- Steven Spielberg's classic film "Jaws" is 50 years old.
- Virtually overnight, Spielberg became one of Hollywood's most successful directors - the shark shocker laid the foundation for his unique career
- To mark the 50th anniversary of the film (it was released in the USA on June 20, 1975), Universal Pictures is bringing it back to selected cinemas this year.
When "Jaws" was released 50 years ago, the cinema landscape in Switzerland was not yet characterized by large multiplex centers, but by many smaller "cinemas". Important advertising media were posters and scene photos, which were displayed in glass cases in the entrance area of every movie theater.
The poster for "Jaws" is one of the most memorable of all: a gigantic shark's head with its mouth open beneath a swimming woman.
To mark the 50th anniversary of the film (it was released in the USA on June 20, 1975), Universal Pictures is bringing the film back to selected cinemas this year.
In combination with the published production stills, it was easy to imagine the horrors of the film 50 years ago as a primary school child. It was of course impossible to see the film - there was an age restriction of 16 and over - but the images set off a mental movie.
As a result, we took long breaks in front of the movie theater every day, both on the way there and on the way back from school.
Actors Richard Dreyfuss (left) as marine biologist and Robert Shaw (right) as shark catcher Quint in a scene from Universal's film "Jaws". Universal Pictures is also bringing the film back to selected cinemas this year to mark its 50th screen anniversary.
Image: dpa
In recent years, the image conveyed by "Jaws" of predatory fish as cruel eating machines has been corrected. (archive image)
Image: dpa
There were various problems with the mechanical shark "Bruce", here restored at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, during the filming of "Jaws". (archive picture)
Image: dpa
The poster for "Jaws" achieved iconic status. (archive image)
Image: dpa
With "Jaws", merchandising was introduced as a major source of income for blockbuster films. (archive image)
Image: dpa
For director Steven Spielberg - now 78 years old - "Jaws" once marked his international breakthrough. (archive image)
Image: dpa
Actors Richard Dreyfuss (left) as marine biologist and Robert Shaw (right) as shark catcher Quint in a scene from Universal's film "Jaws". Universal Pictures is also bringing the film back to selected cinemas this year to mark its 50th screen anniversary.
Image: dpa
In recent years, the image conveyed by "Jaws" of predatory fish as cruel eating machines has been corrected. (archive image)
Image: dpa
There were various problems with the mechanical shark "Bruce", here restored at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, during the filming of "Jaws". (archive picture)
Image: dpa
The poster for "Jaws" achieved iconic status. (archive image)
Image: dpa
With "Jaws", merchandising was introduced as a major source of income for blockbuster films. (archive image)
Image: dpa
For director Steven Spielberg - now 78 years old - "Jaws" once marked his international breakthrough. (archive image)
Image: dpa
Without realizing it, this was already very close to the quintessence of the film: the shark itself is barely visible in the first 80 minutes. Director Steven Spielberg, who was only 28 at the time, relied on a well-known insight of the horror genre: fear is not generated by what you see, but by what you sense.
Daa-dam. Daa-dam. Da-dum da-dum da-dum da-dum.
Accordingly, he largely limited himself to hints, for example through the music by John Williams with the alarming Daa-dam, Daa-dam. Or through underwater shots from the shark's perspective.
One of the best scenes is the one in which an entire fishing jetty is torn off by the power of the giant fish and plunges into the sea - then suddenly turns around and races towards an angler who has fallen into the water. Here, too, there is no sign of the monster itself.
This stylistic element is what makes the film so appealing - but it was largely used out of sheer embarrassment. The seven and a half meter long, sinfully expensive mechanical shark dummy that was built for the film (along with two smaller ones) did not work.
"Bruce", as Spielberg named the model after his lawyer, sank gurgling into the sea at the start of filming. "The tail looked out of the water and wagged like pinball," Spielberg later recalled in a TV interview.
"There was another explosion and all the pneumatic cables were flying around like snakes. Then it went quiet. There was a final burp of bubbles, and that was the last time we saw the shark - for about three weeks."
So now he had to make a shark movie without a shark. And when he eventually got it back, it was cross-eyed and the jaw didn't close properly. Spielberg feared that "Bruce" would be a laughing stock, so he decided to show him as little as possible.
Spielberg feared a huge flop
But the difficulties didn't end there: Around the middle of the movie, the action shifts from the coast to the open sea. However, no one had dared to film at sea for any length of time before then - for good reason, as it turned out.
The work in the summer of 1974 off the east coast island of Martha's Vineyard proved to be incredibly nerve-wracking. Not only did the actors get seasick. It was regatta season, which meant that there was always a sailboat on the horizon.
And then the shoot had to be suspended every time, after all, it had to look on screen as if the final battle with the shark was taking place in the solitude of the ocean. At the time, it was not yet technically possible to blur a boat out of the background.
This tripled the number of shooting days as well as the costs. He was convinced that this would mean the end of his career, says Spielberg in retrospect in a documentary by "National Geographic". "I had nightmares for years afterwards. I was still on set and the shoot would never end."
In fact, "Jaws", which was released in the USA in June, recouped its production costs many times over and became the most successful film in cinema history to date.
In retrospect, "Jaws" - as the film was originally called - is considered the birth of the summer blockbuster. It is almost forgotten today that until then it was often said that cinemas no longer had a future - people could watch movies on television.
"Jaws" ushered in a new era of expensive Hollywood productions that were launched with an unprecedented amount of advertising and drew part of their revenue from merchandising. Watching them was stylized as an experience that was only possible on the big screen in the company of many others.
Today, the movie seems to anticipate the Trump era
Even today, half a century later, the thriller still works. One of the three main characters, the bearish shark hunter Quint, looks like a portent of the Trump era through the lens of 2025: he rejects the science of marine biologist Matt Hooper and mocks him as a spoiled city dweller.
During the shark hunt, he spirals into revenge fantasies and willfully breaks off all contact with the outside world. His irresponsible behavior causes the boat to sink - for which he himself pays with his life.
The real unsympathetic character, however, is the mayor of the seaside resort, who wants to keep the beaches open at all costs for the sake of profit. Communist Cuban leader Fidel Castro therefore described the "white shark" as a "wonderful parable of the corruption of capitalism".
Primal fears activated
Perhaps the most lasting effect of the film was that it activated countless people's primal fears of swimming in the sea. It is the paranoia of not knowing what lies beneath the surface of the water.
"Watch this movie before you go swimming," said the advertisement. At the same time, sharks, especially white sharks, were demonized, which contributed to the decimation of their populations.
Fortunately, the image has changed in recent years, also under the influence of the media: films shared millions of times on social networks show divers swimming with great white sharks without protection and even touching them.
Here it becomes clear that Steven Spielberg's killer fish is hardly more real than the T-Rex from "Jurassic Park", which he brought to the big screen 20 years later. He remained true to the monsters - but he never made a movie on water again.
