Juicy notes on ''Jaws''

A YOUNG man who had directed his first Hollywood feature film with not much of success, noticed the galley proofs of a novel of the stunningly successful producer-duo, Richard Zanuck-David Brown, on the desk of the latter, at Universal Studios. Looking at the title, he thought it was a porno novel about a dentist's amorous adventures! Well, he was mistaken. The novel was the booming best-seller named ``Jaws'' by Peter Benchley. The 27-year old youth was Steven Spielberg!

He was looking for his next film and felt more than disappointed when Brown told him that ``Jaws'' had already been assigned to another director. Yes, Spielberg was not the first choice for the making of the movie!

When the director who had been assigned continuously referred to the main protagonist as ``whale'' instead of ``shark'' he was taken off the project. And in walked Spielberg!

The novel excited Spielberg but he did not like many elements in the book. Like the sub-plot of adultery on the beach. He saw the film as the elemental battle between man and Nature, human being and shark, a la Moby Dick. The eternal fight for survival. Benchley who had received a stunning $150,000 for his sensational novel, worked on the screenplay but his three drafts did not please Spielberg. He felt they were too close to the book and had lost the basic theme of man versus the fury of the seemingly kind Nature. Spielberg brought in his college mate and screenwriter Carl Gottlieb to do the script. And he worked with him for he believed that a film began with its script. After many drafts the screenplay was ready but it did not please the actors who were signed to play the major roles, Robert Shaw (the shark hunter) and Richard Dreyfuss (the ichthyologist or ``shark expert''). Both stars described the script in colourful four-letter expletives!

For the main role of the cop in charge of safety of the fictitious Amity Island beach, Richard Zanuck (son of the Hollywood mogul and legend, Darryl F. Zanuck) wished to rope in Charlton Heston but Spielberg vetoed him! ``Not Moses!'' was his comment. Roy Scheider, boxer- turned-fine actor with a Shakespearean theatre background came on board, but he had a complaint. Wearing glasses ( it was not so in the book) which Spielberg insisted upon to make the character vulnerable and more human.

The biggest problem was the casting of ``the hero'', the terrorising shark. A huge mechanical monster was made with complicated controls (a Hollywood insider told this writer that it was easier to operate a Boeing 747!) and it proved more temperamental than human stars.

Named Bruce, the shark sank in the Atlantic Ocean at the famous resort, Martha's Vineyard, during the initial ``tests''. Later it came up tail first! In the close- ups, it developed squint in the eye! Then it exploded in the waters! Newsweek went to town exploding the myth about Spielberg's claim of the ``real shark''.

Bruce gave so much ache and agony that the producers told Spielberg to get a real shark and train it to act! And that was not all. Some of horror-reaction shots of Dreyfuss were filmed later in the backyard swimming pool of the editor Verna Fields.

(Indeed in a chat with this writer, Dreyfuss said that he had not been keen on doing the film and its amazing success surprised him! His aunt, Evelyn Dreyfuss, a top Los Angeles lawyer's wife told him that her nephew had never read the novel.)

Spielberg overshot the budget and time schedule and so it was expected that he would be replaced. However, wiser counsel prevailed and the director stayed on to create movie history of many kinds. The movie cost $4.5 million (original budget, $2.3million) and it earned $260 million in USA alone! More millions poured in from the rest of the world.

Nevertheless, ``Jaws'' (1975) did not fare well at the Oscar races. It won three Oscars, (Best Editing, Best Original Music Score, and Best Sound). Spielberg was not even nominated for his work.

However soon Spielberg went on to become a cult figure and a legend in cinema in his own lifetime...

RANDOR GUY

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