By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
When I was a teen living in an arid town in landlocked Northern Utah, we really had no need to think—let alone worry—about sharks. Yet, that’s exactly what happened during the memorable 1975 Jaws summer.
Steven Spielberg’s now-classic blockbuster film, based on Peter Benchley’s bestselling novel with the same name, splashed onto my hometown’s movie theatre screens on a warm day in late June 50 years ago.
The world was a different place back then. There were no smartphones, cable channels or streaming services. My family still had a black and white television set with a rabbit ears antenna and no remote control.
Movies were a major form of entertainment as well as an important point of cultural intersection. Thus, we all noticed when huge advertisements in the local Ogden Standard-Examiner newspaper showed a huge great white shark racing to devour a lone swimmer.
The ads dared us to watch “the terrifying motion picture from the terrifying No. 1 bestseller.” My friends and I were 14 and fearless, and—at least in our own minds—immortal, so we readily accepted the challenge.
In Ogden, Jaws played at the newest and best theatre in town—the Cinedome 70. Opened five years earlier, the Cinedome 70 had twin domed auditoriums, each with over 700 comfortable seats and 70-foot curved screens.
After purchasing large cups of soda and big bags of hot buttered popcorn, my friends and I settled into seats along with the rest of the excited but nervous full house. The chattering crowd hushed in anticipation as the theatre darkened.
We watched the opening scenes, collectively stunned.
First there was the famous John Williams tuba ostinato, with stubbornly repeating E and F notes, an ominous warning of what was to come.
Then, a beach party’s nocturnal encounter morphed into a horrific attack upon a young female who decided to swim in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Deadly silence and deathly calm followed after the carnage. We all put our popcorn down, slightly nauseated and unable to eat another bite.
For the next two hours, the audience gasped, screamed, jumped, winced, and cheered as the residents of Amity Island (a fictional version of Martha’s Vineyard) confronted not just the overwhelming forces of nature, but the equally dangerous power of human greed, desire, and obsession.
The next day, we rehashed the whole scary but thrilling movie before going to watch it again as soon as possible.
We did not get anywhere close to the ocean that summer. Still, there were occasional swims in a pool or dips in a nearby freshwater lake, but not without nervous laughter or half-joking comments about what hidden danger lurked beneath.
Our apprehensive state of mind was not unique.
Jaws played in American theaters all summer long, and smashed box office sales records. Everyone saw it, and a tidal wave of reaction washed over the national psyche.
There were loud debates about the efficacy of the film rating system. Although the full page Jaws ads did warn that the movie might be “too intense” for some younger viewers, critics nonetheless said it was too violent and bloody for its PG rating.
Fears about the ocean spiked. Visits to beaches declined.
Saturday Night Live broadcast a hilarious skit called “Land Shark,” featuring a Jaws-like creature that knocked on urban apartment doors. The clever shark—voiced by Chevy Chase—announced a fake identity (“Flowers…Candy gram”) to gain entry and attack anyone tricked by the ruse.
Lines from the movie evolved into common catchphrases. People started saying, “You’re going to need a bigger boat” whenever a larger than expected problem arose.
Back home, and even with our landlocked geography, our fears about the water were not completely irrational.
Just a year earlier in July 1974, a tragic but all too common accident at the nearby Pineview reservoir claimed the life of 17 year old Sam Cruz, a student at the high school my friends and I soon would attend.
Sam—a rising senior and the incoming student body president—fell out of an inner tube he’d been floating on in about 10-15 feet of water. He could not make it back, slipped under the surface, and drowned.
Rescuers got to him ten minutes later, but just a few minutes too late. Like me, he’d been an altar boy at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Ogden, the venue for his very sad funeral mass.
Sam’s passing followed soon after by the fictional watery demise of so many others in Jaws, were a sort of wake-up call for my generation.
Both proved to be necessary and important lessons about how to confront and navigate the numerous proverbial sharks and jaws we’d face in our own lives. And there would be many.
We were grown up enough to attend high school, but that also meant we were old enough to start facing some of the hard facts of life. One of them was death.
As the summer of 1975 ended, and school started again, the Jaws fever subsided.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave John Williams the 1976 Oscar for his Jaws music. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest won Best Picture, however, and the 27 year old Spielberg was not even nominated for Best Director.
As the frenzy faded, a part of me I wondered if I would ever again see the likes of a gripping cultural moment such as Jaws, one that resonated so far and so wide.
And then, just two years later, my friends and I went to the same movie theatre. We again ordered popcorn and soda, and settled into our seats.
The theatre darkened. As another memorable John Williams musical composition filled my ears, I watched as these words appeared on the Cinedome screen…
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Paraclete Press published his book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, in August 2021. The League of Utah Writers chose it as the best non-fiction book of 2022.
