50 Years After ‘Jaws’ Terrified Filmgoers, a Reporter Looks Back

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Book Review – 50 Years After ‘Jaws’ Terrified Filmgoers, a Reporter Looks Back

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Book Review
• Host: Gilbert Cruz, Editor of The New York Times Book Review
• Description: Featuring discussions with top authors and critics about the week's top books and the literary world.
• Episode: 50 Years After ‘Jaws’ Terrified Filmgoers, a Reporter Looks Back
• Release Date: June 14, 2025

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Introduction to the Milestone

Timestamp: [00:35] - [01:50]

Gilbert Cruz opens the episode by celebrating the 50th anniversary of both Peter Benchley’s novel Jaws and Steven Spielberg’s iconic film adaptation released in June 1975. Cruz emphasizes the enduring legacy of Jaws, highlighting its significance in cinema history and its multifaceted brilliance—from performances and directing to cinematography and score.

Key Points:

• Jaws has remained a cultural phenomenon for half a century.
• The novel preceded the film by a year, embedding sharks into the public consciousness.
• The discussion is enriched by Cruz’s personal admiration for the movie, having watched it countless times.

Quote:

"Jaws began as a phenomenon and has maintained that reputation for half a century now." – Gilbert Cruz [00:35]

Guest Introduction and Personal Reflections

Timestamp: [01:50] - [03:34]

Gilbert Cruz introduces Brian Raftery, a seasoned culture journalist and author of Best Movie Year: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen. Raftery shares his childhood experiences with Jaws, including being captivated yet terrified by the story. He recounts reading the Reader’s Digest condensed version during a family vacation, which significantly impacted his perception of sharks.

Key Points:

• Raftery had a love-hate relationship with Jaws as a child.
• The Reader’s Digest edition made the story more accessible, despite his fear.
• Early exposure to the story was intertwined with family experiences and fears of sharks.

Quote:

"I was absolutely terrified to read this book as a kid... my father was gripping the seat and he turned to her and said, I need to get a drink right now." – Brian Raftery [02:09], [22:09]

Peter Benchley: The Man Behind Jaws

Timestamp: [03:34] - [12:45]

Raftery delves into Peter Benchley's background, highlighting his literary lineage as the son of novelist Nathaniel Benchley and grandson of humorist Robert Benchley. Benchley's inspiration for Jaws stemmed from a news article about a massive shark, leading him to craft a gripping narrative that intertwines various subplots, including economic struggles and personal relationships within the fictional town of Amity.

Key Points:

• Benchley's familial ties influenced his writing career.
• The novel's opening chapter is celebrated for its intense depiction of a shark attack.
• Jaws as a novel explores deeper societal and political themes, reflecting the 1970s zeitgeist.

Quote:

"Underneath the surface, but I feel like I should avoid that cliché." – Brian Raftery [09:35]

Economic and Social Underpinnings in Jaws

Timestamp: [07:02] - [09:54]

Cruz and Raftery discuss the novel’s intricate portrayal of Amity’s economic dependence on summer tourism and the resulting social tensions. Raftery points out the novel’s exploration of 1970s political and cultural issues, including distrust in government and economic precarity. The dialogue also touches on Benchley’s efforts to correct public misconceptions about sharks post the novel’s success.

Key Points:

• The novel highlights the fragile economic balance of small coastal towns.
• It reflects 1970s anxieties, such as rising divorce rates and government mistrust.
• Benchley actively worked to educate the public about sharks, countering the fear-mongering spurred by his novel.

Quote:

"The book makes the point that capitalism will risk even human life in order to keep the markets open." – Brian Raftery [10:43]

Adaptation: From Page to Screen

Timestamp: [12:45] - [34:49]

The conversation shifts to the adaptation process of Jaws from novel to film. Raftery defends the book against critiques, noting Spielberg’s strategic script revisions with Carl Gottlieb to focus on suspense and character depth. Key differences between the book and the movie are examined, including omitted subplots and character alterations that streamlined the narrative for cinematic impact.

Key Points:

• Benchley’s original manuscript contained multiple subplots that were simplified for the film.
• Spielberg and Gottlieb emphasized a "straight line adventure" to enhance suspense and character dynamics.
• The movie’s success influenced the modern blockbuster model, including nationwide releases and expansive marketing campaigns.

Quote:

"The town meeting scene, just that shot of all the locals where it's just... it's almost like a Sgt. Pepper album cover of just these incredibly amazing looking characters." – Brian Raftery [27:22]

Legacy and Cultural Impact

Timestamp: [34:49] - [38:12]

Raftery shares his personal connection to Jaws, recounting seeing the film in the theater multiple times and its everlasting hold on him. The discussion includes reflections on the film’s seamless blend of thrilling scenes with profound character moments, which contribute to its timeless appeal. Raftery also touches on the sequels and subsequent novelizations, noting their varying degrees of success and impact.

Key Points:

• Jaws remains a beloved classic, with personal anecdotes underscoring its emotional resonance.
• The film’s production challenges and Spielberg’s directorial brilliance add to its legendary status.
• Subsequent sequels and adaptations have attempted to capture the original’s magic with mixed results.

Quote:

"The shark itself. It never stops. That movie just never stops entertaining me, never stops making me think. I love Jaws so much." – Brian Raftery [23:42]

Adaptation Insights and Future Projects

Timestamp: [38:12] - [38:56]

As the episode concludes, Cruz and Raftery briefly discuss Raftery's ongoing project—a biography of Hannibal Lecter—drawing parallels between the adaptation processes of iconic characters in literature and film. They emphasize the importance of fidelity to the source material while allowing creative interpretations to breathe new life into established narratives.

Key Points:

• Raftery’s work on Hannibal Lecter explores the evolution of literary characters through various adaptations.
• Effective adaptations balance respect for the original material with innovative storytelling techniques.
• The conversation underscores the enduring relevance of thoughtful adaptations in modern media.

Quote:

"I really do think it would make for a pretty great or interesting TV miniseries. No one should ever do that." – Brian Raftery [15:36]

Conclusion

Timestamp: [38:37] - [38:56]

Gilbert Cruz wraps up the episode by thanking Brian Raftery for his insightful discussion on Jaws. The conversation highlights the profound impact of both the novel and the film on popular culture, cinema, and literary adaptations, celebrating their remarkable legacy 50 years later.

Final Remarks:

• Jaws exemplifies the power of storytelling across different mediums.
• The enduring popularity of Jaws underscores its place as a pivotal work in both literature and film.
• The episode serves as a tribute to the intricate craftsmanship behind creating a timeless classic.

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Notable Quotes:

• On Jaws as a cultural phenomenon:

  "Jaws has remained a cultural phenomenon for half a century." – Gilbert Cruz [00:35]

• On the economic themes in the novel:

  "Even after the best of summers, Amity winters were rough." – Gilbert Cruz [07:02]

• On Benchley’s efforts to educate the public:

  "He was really shocked that people would actually go out and kill an animal because he'd written a fictitious novel about an incredibly singular, remarkable, hungry shark." – Brian Raftery [12:45]

• On the film’s timeless appeal:

  "That movie just never stops entertaining me, never stops making me think. I love Jaws so much." – Brian Raftery [23:42]

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Conclusion

This episode of The Book Review masterfully explores the multifaceted legacy of Jaws, delving into its origins, adaptation process, and enduring impact on culture and cinema. Through engaging dialogue and insightful analysis, Gilbert Cruz and Brian Raftery celebrate the 50th anniversary of this monumental work, offering listeners a comprehensive understanding of why Jaws continues to captivate audiences decades later.

Transcript

[Bill Clinton]

The best selling dream team, Bill Clinton and James Patterson return with this summer's blockbuster thrill ride, the First Gentleman. America has a powerful new president and her husband is on trial for murder. Bursting with action and authenticity, this courtroom drama has a twist you'll need to read to believe. Bill Clinton and James Patterson's the First Gentleman, available now in hardcover, e book and audio wherever books are sold.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times Book Review, and this is the Book Review podcast. In June 1975, 50 years ago, one of my favorite movies ever hit theaters. It's a movie I've seen upwards of 25, 30, 35 times. I've lost count that it also happens to be great on almost every level that matters when it comes to a movie. The performances, the directing, the screenwriting, the cinematography, the score, the editing, the poster, for God's sake, all that's icing on the cake. Jaws, which is what we're here to talk about, began as a phenomenon and has maintained that reputation for half a century now. By the time Steven Spielberg's movie was released, it already been in the public consciousness for some time. And that's because its source material, a best selling novel by Peter Benchley, had been published the year prior. To help me celebrate the 50th anniversaries of both the book and the movie, I'm joined this week by Brian Raftery, a longtime culture journalist and author of the book Best movie year how 1999 blew up the Big Screen. Brian, welcome to the Book Review Podcast.

[Brian Raftery]

Thanks, Gil. We're happy to be here.

[Gilbert Cruz]

So for the 50th anniversary of Peter Benchley's novel last summer, you wrote just a wonderful piece for us here, the Book Review. Looking back on that book and how it started, this entire thing, this, as I said, phenomenon. Had you read the book prior to starting your work on that piece?

[Brian Raftery]

I had no. It took me a long time because this was a book that I flirted with as a child over and over again. Even though I was absolutely terrified to read this book as a kid. And obviously I was aware of the movie, I was aware of the poster, I was aware of everything about this movie. And Shark scared me so much that I would see a copy of Peter Benchley's Jaws whenever my family vacationed at the Jersey Shore. All these Jersey Shore homes for some reason decided to have a copy of Jaws in the library. I have no idea why. And I would quickly pick it up as a kid, put it down, so scared. And then I can't believe I remember this, but my father, who was a journalist, was watching the Oliver north hearings one summer instead of being at the beach. And while he was doing that, since we're not at the beach, I cracked open the Reader's Digest condensed version of Jaws. I think I read it the whole day, and I don't think I went into the water because of that traffic. I probably spent more time thinking about sharks and Auburn north than I spent actually being on the water.

[Gilbert Cruz]

For those people who are listening, who maybe don't recall what is a Reader's Digest condensed edition?

[Brian Raftery]

It was a strange sort of publishing industry offshoot where Reader's Digest would, I guess, buy the reprint rights to some very big novels and then trim them down by a few hundred pages. I mean, if I. If I could read that condensed book in a day, it couldn't have been more than like 200 pages or so. I guess they took some of the same stuff out of the book that was later taken out of the movie. I'm not sure it'd be interesting to revisit to see how they edited it.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Let's talk about that book. You reread the book. You went back into the publishing history of Peter Benchley's Jaws. You spoke to his widow, Wendy. Tell me about the author. First, tell me about Peter Benchley.

[Brian Raftery]

He's an interesting guy. His father was Nathaniel Benchley, who was a novelist, and he grew up in Nantucket. And his father was totally fine with him wanting to be a writer. I think they had this agreement over the summer where his father would give him the same amount of money he would have gotten for mowing the lawn if he would go and write all day. But he was a journalist, he was a speechwriter. He had one of those prolific, all over the place writing careers you could afford to have in the 60s and 70s. And he had read in the mid-60s, he had clipped out a news article about this massive shark being caught, I think off the coast of Montauk. And he just kept it in his wallet and he would show it to people and tell people about it. And eventually he got the idea of writing a book about a giant sized shark that kind of creeps up on this New England town. And that's what became John's. He took several attempts at the book. I think he got a very small advance. He got maybe a thousand dollar advance to write the first four chapters. And they were rejected because he was trying to be too humorous. But what he did eventually in his writing process was he kind of locked into this Infamous opening chapter. And if you've seen Jaws, you could probably guess what the opening chapter of the book is. But it is this shark attack where this shark at night just devours this young female swimmer. The writing is really fun, it's really gnarly. And it's one of those amazing opening chapters where the book is moving as fast as the shark. And after you read that first chapter, you are just completely pulled into it. And then the book takes all kinds of different subplots and cul de sacs along the way.

[Gilbert Cruz]

We should definitely talk about those later.

[Brian Raftery]

Oh my gosh. Yeah. But Doubleday bought the book and they certainly, once it was finished, they knew they had a potential hit book. I think at one point they were going to hire skywriters to put the words read Jaws over Jones beach, which is a fantastic idea, which I don't think they actually wound up doing. But this was the era of just blockbuster novels. And this is the 70s where Mario Puzo and a bunch of other writers were making these really great thrillers. Sometimes great in theory, not always great in execution. But you could sell hundreds of thousands of copies, if not millions, of a really smart, pulpy, adult aimed novel. And there were so many places in the 70s to go buy paperbacks. You could buy them at convenience stores. The distribution was fantastic. The paydays were amazing. I think Peter eventually got somewhere around half a million dollars for the paperback rights to jaws. That's in 19. I don't even know what they'll be now. But it was a time where a hit book could be a cultural phenomenon almost immediately.

[Gilbert Cruz]

It's funny because in reading about 70s pop culture and pop literature, the way in which paperback rights were different from hardcover rights and how paperback, as you say, distribution was completely different, it was likely that more people bought these little mass market paperback editions. And that's really how a book popped. Paperback publishers were not necessarily owned by the same publishers as who published the hardcover edition. It was a whole different financial publishing environment back then.

[Brian Raftery]

Yeah, I mean, we're talking just after Frederick Forsyth died and he wrote so many hit books. David Jackal and the Odessophile. As someone who goes to a lot of used bookstores, I've never seen those in hardcover. I just see gazillions of paperback copies of those books. And same with jobs. I just think there was a secondary life for a hit novel back then. And so these books could be huge for two or three years.

[Gilbert Cruz]

So in the book, which I read for the first time a couple weeks ago, Amity is Not an island. Amity is a town on Long Island's south shore. And one of the things that was extremely interesting to me is obviously this is in the movie, but Peter Benchley really underscores just how essential those summer dollars are. I know we have the mayor character in the film who talks and talks about it, but there's this one part near the beginning of the book where he writes, it was the beginning of the summer season and Brody knew that on the success or failure of those 12 brief weeks rested the fortunes of Amity for a whole year. Just a page later, Benchley writes, even after the best of summers, Amity winters were rough. Three of every 10 families went on relief. Dozens of men were forced to move for the winter to the north shore of Long island, where they scratched for work, shucking scallops for a few dollars a day. It was really interesting how he captured so well, the movie does this in a different way. The sense of financial precarity that we all make fun of the mayor now and did so during the pandemic for being the guy who's willing to put people's lives on the line to keep the beaches open. But Benchley, maybe because of his time on Nantucket, really did have a sense of the divide between summer and winter at a place like this.

[Brian Raftery]

Yeah, and I should point out I don't make fun of Mayor Vaughn. I respect the office. I think all a lot of his crimes were unproven. One thing that's so fascinating about the book is that if you want to look at it as a microcosm of seventies political and culture and social issues, there's a lot there. Don't forget the book is coming out at a time when there's an economic crisis in the works. It's a book about afraid marriage between Brody and his wife at a time when divorce rates are going up. And, you know, as you mentioned, the mayor, the whole. One of the most amazing things that's cut out of the movie is that when you read the book, you realize that there's this entire subplot about the mayor being in debt to the mob, and that's why he wants to keep the beaches open. Which I know sounds ridiculous to people who've only seen the movie, and I know people make fun of that, but I think for a book that's coming out just as Watergate investigations and hearings are underway, that's kind of a remarkable look at the complete lack of trust in government. It's also, like, hilarious that this is a book about a killer Shark. But it's also about the mob, but it's also about divorce, but it's also about extramarital affairs, but it's also about class. And I do think, again, going to these 70s novels, I think if you want to look at the Godfather, that's about 10 million things as well, considering this is a book about a killer fish and has a lot going on. I want to say underneath the surface, but I feel like I should avoid that cliche.

[Gilbert Cruz]

You did not. You did say that, and we're going to keep that in. There's so many great details in your piece. One that I actually emailed you about the other day was this quote from Fidel Castro, who interpreted the film Jaws in a very specific way. I was wondering if you could recount that.

[Brian Raftery]

Yeah, I mean, this is the most 70s sentence of all time. But Fidel Castro gave an interview to Lee magazine, that's an older men's magazine about Jaws, and he talked about it. He praised the book. I think this is before the movie came out. He praised the book as a splendid Marxist lesson, which is kind of a remarkable read. And he feels like Fidel Castro. If you were on Twitter today, he'd be one of those Twitter people who immediately post the first tweet about a movie or books like Social Political Underpinnings before talking about who's actually in it. The idea that the leaders of this community are turning a blind eye to this murderous creature in their midst in order to make more money. I think Castro's quote was, the book makes the point that capitalism will risk even human life in order to keep the markets open. And if you replace the word markets with beaches, I mean, that is kind of what the mayor's doing in Jaws.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I would love to talk about Peter Benchley a little bit more before we move on. You mentioned he is the son of author Nathaniel Benchley, someone who wrote many books, one of which was adapted into a movie that I think people of a certain generation know. It's called the Russians Are Coming. The Russians Are Coming. But just as importantly, and I just learned this, he was the grandson of Robert Benchley.

[Brian Raftery]

Yes.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Who was one of the co founders of the Algonquin Roundtable, one of the early stalwarts of the New Yorker. So he came from this incredible pedigree of humor and I would say literature, but, like, the Russians Are Coming. The Russians Are Coming is. I don't know if that's. It's a fun story. I don't know if it's literature, but he Comes from a writer's family and he writes this book and then it gets turned into this movie. That's a phenomenon. And later in life. And you spoke to his widow about this. Though he nor she would ever call it making amends, he did spend a good time of the decades following the release of the movies trying to educate the public about sharks and trying to shift this perception that the movie had put out there.

[Brian Raftery]

Yeah, I think after Jaws came out, eventually saw that people who were scared of sharks because of the movie started taking their frustration out on sharks. There was an increase in shark hunting, There was an increase in tournaments to capture sharks. And I think. And Benchley's quote was. Benchley called it a spasm of macho lunacy, which is a great quote. Which is a quote when you're a multi generational writer's family, you come up with. And he and his wife Ben. To Benchley's credit, he and his wife spent a lot of the 80s, 90s and aughts trying to raise awareness of sharks and how important they are in the ecosystem. I think there's a cynical way of looking at that, like, oh, he was still kind of promoting Jaws, but I think he was 100% sincere. I think he was really shocked that people would actually go out and kill an animal because he'd written a fictitious novel about an incredibly singular, remarkable, hungry shark.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Something I've always been fascinated by is the process of adaptation. Obviously, since the beginning of movies, books have always been a primary source for film stories. And as you already noted, in the 70s there had been a run of successful ones. There was love story in 1970, the Godfather in 72, the Exorcist in 73. These are big books that were then made into huge movies. Anyone who reads the book and then watches the movie, or vice versa, is going to experience a little dissonance here. And I'd just love to talk about what you think was necessary to change or enhance from Benchley's book to what we eventually see on screen.

[Brian Raftery]

I should say that I've always been a defender of this book. I think the book gets a bad rap. I know Steven Soderbergh, who's I think, working on his own book about the making of the movie Jaws, said something dismissively about it recently. And I get why people who have grown up on this movie and seen the movie go back to the book and say, what is this? Because the book has these strange subplots. It's not just the mayor and the mob. There's an entire I Would say maybe inelegantly written love affair between Chief Brody's wife and Hooper, who in the movie is played by Richard Dreyfus. That does not work, I really don't think. And I don't think that's necessary. I mean, you don't have the whole plot about the mob, but without that in the book, I don't think they would have made this choice in the movie to make Mayor Vaughn this kind of ethically compromised character. It's a great part of the movie. I mean, for all intents and purposes, Mayor Vaughn is the villain of jobs, both the book and the movie. And you need that when your other villain is a shark that's just hungry and wandering around the beach. I think they made very smart decisions when they were adapting the book. But not just in terms of plot, but also in terms of the characterizations in the novel. Chief Brody, who's played by Roy Scheider in the movie, is kind of like a grumpy, semi competent cop. He's not really that great. His job, he seems miserable, his marriage is going terribly. Hooper, who is played by Dreyfus in the movie, he's younger and cockier and unlikable. He dies in the book and I can't say it's really that upsetting. He's ready for him to go at that point. And Quint is still very entertaining in the book, but he's just a little more unstable and he doesn't have the great USS Indianapolis speech sack story that you get in the movie itself. I really do think it's a very strong book. I've read it three or four times. I read it probably every 10 years, always during the summer season. I always have a good time reading it. And I can separate it from the movie. And I do think it would make for a pretty great or interesting TV miniseries. No one should ever do that. I'm not recommending anyone ever do that because all people are going to do is think of Steven Spielberg's movie. But there's a lot of rich stuff there. And it's one of those big, sprawling books like Salem's Lot or Peyton Place that's making the entire community kind of the main character in the book. I do like those sprawling multi plot novels, even when not all the plots add up.

[Gilbert Cruz]

The interesting thing to me about the affair between Ellen Brody and Matt Hooper is not necessarily the affair. It's really why Ellen enters it into the first place. Right. We start by talking about the financials in this town and class and Ellen, who doesn't really get a backstory in the movie is a woman who grew up coming to Amity in the summer. She grew up in a rich family, and she came there every summer. And she grew up going to country clubs and playing tennis and hanging out with boys wearing Lacoste polo shirts. And she marries a local chief. Brody in the book is a local. He's not someone who came from New York City to this island community. And so she changes her entire life. And by the time we get to the events of the book, she is like, have I made a mistake? Should I have stayed a rich jerk? And Hooper comes in and he, as is alluded to in the movie, he's a scientist, but he's also a rich boy. And she and he come from the same circle. She actually dated his brother when they were kids. And so the reason they come together. Yes. Is because there's a frustrated marriage. And, you know, Ellen and her husband are not really getting along. But it's also because Ellen's like, did I make a mistake in coming to this town that I used to think was wonderful? And now I'm stuck here year round and no one ever takes me seriously because I'm not from here and it's depressing and I wish I was back at the country club.

[Brian Raftery]

Yeah. And that's the kind of storyline you can get in a sprawling novel. You could not put that in the movie. It would not fit. It would not make sense. I think one reason why this particular subplot always gets panned or made fun of is, like, look, they like it hot and heavy at a surf and turf restaurant. I mean, it's a little.

[Gilbert Cruz]

At a clam shack.

[Brian Raftery]

Yeah. And a lot of those 70s book sex scenes are pretty painful to read. And I don't think. Like I said, I don't think it's the most elegantly written encounter. However, I do think she's a legitimately interesting character. And I do think the class struggle in Jaws, the novel, it does play out in some ways in the movie. I mean, those three guys, when they go out on the boat at the end, yeah, you've got a rich kid, you've got someone who lives on the ocean, and you've got this kind of frazzled former New York cop who does not fit in at all. Not just financially, socially, in any way, culturally, does not fit in. And again, the book gets a lot of criticism, but I think it really has a lot of these elements that wound up in the movie. I think you just have to pare them down a little bit with the screenplay to make them work in that kind of medium.

[Gilbert Cruz]

We'll be right back.

[Bill Clinton]

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[Gilbert Cruz]

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[Bill Clinton]

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[Gilbert Cruz]

Welcome back. This is the book review podcast. I'm Gilbert Cruz and I'm here with culture journalist and author Brian Raftery. And we're talking about jaws upon the 50th anniversary of its film and book releases. So the adaptation process, as I understand it, is Peter Benchley wrote several drafts and then he had never written a screenplay before. So even after several drafts, he only got so far. The professionals had to come in and take over. Steven Spielberg says that he wrote a draft of the screenplay that I don't know anyone has ever seen.

[Brian Raftery]

Yeah.

[Gilbert Cruz]

And then you had a gentleman named Carl Gottlieb came in, worked on it, friend of Spielberg, an actor as well, who appears in the movie as the newspaper editor, who added humor, who did punch up, as they say, who sort of was living with Spielberg while they were making the movie and changing the script almost every day. The chaos of the production of this movie has a lot to do with the fact that the mechanical sharks now at work. But I also had to do with the fact that they really didn't have a script when they or a full script when they started filming the movie. And as Carl Gottlieb describes it in one documentary I saw, he said the movie needed to be a straight line adventure film. Anything that didn't contribute to the suspense or the humanity or the horror had to go. Which is why they took out all these subplots that we've been talking about.

[Brian Raftery]

Which I think was the smart move. Though I also think one reason I love Jaws, the movie so much is that it doesn't. I don't know if it's quite a straight line adventure movie. It is when you watch it the first time. But I think one of the reasons why this movie is so beloved and it's absolutely my favorite movie of all time, it will always be. I was fascinated by this movie before I saw it as a kid. But Jaws, to me, is a straight up comedy. It's an adventure film. It's a monster movie. It's a three guys on a mission movie. It's also a movie about three very different men, like John Castavete's husbands, in a way. It's just. To me, that movie can be a different film every time you watch it. And I think it's great. Sure, it's a seafaring adventure. It's definitely a thriller. But there's so much underneath it at all times. I'm using neck bache again. But there's so much underneath Jaws at all times. And I think a lot of that is to Peter Benchley's credit because I do think he put a lot of those elements in the book for them to be plucked out, refined. The movie would've been a lot different if there had been a surf and turf sex scene between the police chief's wife and the visiting shark expert.

[Gilbert Cruz]

So how many times would you reckon you've seen this movie?

[Brian Raftery]

I've tried to figure that out recently because the weird thing is I watched it in utero. My parents were at one of the first New York City screenings of Jaws in 1975 while my mom.

[Gilbert Cruz]

What?

[Brian Raftery]

While my mom was pregnant with me. And my mom sat there freaking out the whole time. And she looked over at my dad, who was very quiet, and she thought, gosh, he's really. He did nothing phases this guy. And then as soon as the lights went up, my mom tells it, she turned and saw my dad. He was gripping the seat and he turned to her and said, I need to get a drink right now. So I've seen Jaws. I saw Jaws in my parents in the room I saw in the theater with them out of the room. I've seen it every year since I moved to LA seven or eight years ago in the theater. I think I have probably. I've probably seen it 40 or 50 times. Like, I think. I think I've seen it 40 or 50 times. And yet, even again, when I saw it last week, I was like, oh, never noticed that before. I'm definitely getting down to the real arcane stuff about Jaws I haven't seen before. But this movie just never gets old to me. I could watch it a million times in a million different ways. And it's partly the movie itself, and it's partly the awareness of how wild this production was and that it was made basically by a little kid here. Steven Spielberg's in his late 20s when he makes this. It's remarkable who shoots a movie on the water ever anymore. You should not do that. And all the flaws with the mechanical shark, all the problems they had, all the tension between Robin Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss, you can tell it's there a little bit, but it doesn't hurt the movie at all. If anything, I think all those elements help make the movie what it is.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Seeing or being present in your mother's womb while she goes to see an early screening of Jaws is perfection. I'm so jealous.

[Brian Raftery]

It makes sense that I wound up being obsessed with it for the rest of my life.

[Gilbert Cruz]

It absolutely makes sense. I can't wait for my son, who was in my wife's stomach when we saw Gareth Edwards Godzilla in 2014, to tell me in 20 years that's his favorite movie of all time. I've also seen this movie dozens and dozens of times. I was just talking to our wonderful engineer Maddie, who I'm going to shout out here on the episode about something that I learned for the first time while watching it this weekend. And I feel like a dummy. And can I confess to you something that maybe I should have?

[Brian Raftery]

Yes, yes.

[Gilbert Cruz]

As I was telling Maddie, there's a scene where Richard Dreyfuss goes down. They find Ben Gardner's boat at night. He goes down, the head pops out. Just extremely famous jump scare. And I've always, like, Ben Gardner. Why don't we ever see him in the movie?

[Brian Raftery]

Oh.

[Gilbert Cruz]

And then finally I realize that he is in the movie. We just never hear someone call him to his name to his face. He's in there a couple times. For 30 years or however long I've been watching this, I'm like, really? That guy whoever played Ben Gardner, like, he really got shafted. You see this head, but you never see him in the film. Finally, on viewing number 33, I realize he is the guy wearing the plaids fisherman's jacket.

[Brian Raftery]

That scene is so amazing. It scares me every time. I've seen the theater, and I took my daughter when she was maybe 10, she'd already seen it actually, to go see it at the New Beverly Theater here in Los Angeles, which is this great theater that Quentin Tarantino owns. And in this entire sold out Theater of almost exclusively adults. My daughter screamed at that scene and everyone in the theater, not everyone, but a lot of people nearby clapped or laughed because I think they were very happy that this movie can still scare a little kid because those adults are scared too. I know that head's popping out of both. It's this weird trick my. My brain pulls on me where maybe the head won't pop out, maybe the head won't pop out. And it always does, and it always scares the heck out of me. I noticed the thing I noticed last time that I never caught before, which is that, you know, a lot of the third act of the movie is these three very different strains of macho trying to one up or prove themselves to each other. And I'm not gonna get the quote exactly right, but there's a scene where Quint is trying to reel something in and he says something like, I've got something big here. And Dreyfus goes, I don't think so. And I'm like, oh, wow, I never caught up on the. Again, that's not an exact quote. But I'm like, how did I never notice that before? It's a very rewarding movie. It's like the shark itself. It never stops. That movie just never stops. It never stops entertaining me, never stops making me think. I love Jaws so much.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I think there's something about the balance between the more extravagant scenes, whether it's the death scenes or the ones with the exciting John Williams meetings when they're chasing the shark, that are balanced out by these character moments. Right. This movie would not have survived 50 years if it didn't have characters that you wanted to watch over and over again. So whether it's Quint's Indianapolis speech or the scene where Hooper comes over to the Brody house while the Chief is getting drunk, or that town hall meeting where Brody is trying to navigate being an off islander and telling these people that he has to shut the beach down. And then we get introduced to Quince. These are all character moments that are eminently rewatchable. And I think if they didn't exist, this would not be a movie with a legacy.

[Brian Raftery]

That town meeting scene, just that shot of all the locals where it's just. It's Almost like a Sgt. Pepper album cover of just these incredibly amazing looking characters. And you can just see on their faces their resentment, their frustration. You can see in their faces that if they don't get rid of the shark, they are going to have that brutal winter. Everything from the movie down to, like, the casting of Just even the most briefly glimpsed. Xphase is phenomenal.

[Gilbert Cruz]

It is the first true blockbuster. This, combined with the release of Star wars two years later, ushered in the era of what we think of as modern blockbuster filmmaking. It led into all the big, huge blockbuster films of the 80s and arguably led to even the state that we're in now when we have movies that if they don't make a billion dollars, they're considered failures. The reason it was a blockbuster in part was because Universal, the studio that put it out, instead of rolling it out piecemeal across America to movie theaters. This many movie there's this weekend, this many movie theaters the following weekend, they just said nationwide release, something we're very familiar with now. It was new at the time. And you combine that with Universal's overwhelming marketing campaign and it made this movie absolutely unavoidable when it came out 50 years ago.

[Brian Raftery]

And I think one reason why Universal took that risk was I'm sure they had confidence in the movie. But the turnaround between Jaws the novel and Jaws the movie is really quick. I mean, the book was still a must read on everyone's minds at that point, before the movie even came out. I don't even know if there's been a hit novel in the last couple years that was adapted for the screen as quickly as Jaws was, but it is, it could totally change the playbook for how to roll out a movie, had a distributed movie, and helped build what we know as the summer season. It's remarkable to me, because I grew up in the post Jaws era, that there was ever a time when summer movie season wasn't the absolute biggest season of the year. But I think for a while it was. Sometimes the thinking was the kids are out of school and some are at camp and people are vacationing. But post Jaws and especially like post Star wars summer blockbusters became the blockbusters and they got so much bigger in terms of distribution and in terms of scale and in terms of cost, all of which has had some negative cast down effects decades later. But I don't know, sometimes people write these essays, like blaming Jaws for the blockbuster era and people who have blockbuster fatigue. And I'm like, yeah, it was worth it. Like, I don't care. Like, we got Jaws out of it. You know what I mean? Like, if you're gonna complain that like Jaws was amazing, then we got all these movies that wanted to be as big as Jaws. I'm like, yeah, there's worst crimes in the world. I'm okay with that.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Brian. I was Thinking the same thing about an hour ago.

[Brian Raftery]

Yeah, who cares?

[Gilbert Cruz]

Is it that bad? This is a great movie. I think I could live with it.

[Brian Raftery]

Yeah. There's so much commiseration about how much money studios are spending on movies now. People go on Twitter, they can't believe they spent this much on that movie. And I'm like, not my money. I don't care. I don't care. I don't have. I don't have a stake in like. Is the movie I'm seeing now good or bad for the industry? Is the movie I'm seeing now good or bad is the only thing I really care about? I'm interested in stuff, but I don't care about it quite as much as the actual movie itself. But yeah, and Jaws, because it was so big, that first movie just lasted in the culture for years and years. You also get the Saturday Night Live parodies. You get this amazing Mad magazine cover, which is still my favorite Mad magazine cover of all time. And you get the great Mad magazine parody. Maybe not as much as Star wars would become a couple years later, but it just feels like it was just truly an inescapable phenomenon. Both the book and the movie, back to back in just a 18 month span, something like that. It's a remarkable period that these, the book and the movie overlapped.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Have you seen the sequels? There are three sequels to this movie. Jaws 2, Jaws 3, Jaws 3D, and Jaws the Revenge.

[Brian Raftery]

I have seen all three of them probably at least 10 times. I do not now, I do not think they are great movies. I got obsessed with Jaws when I was like 6 or 7 and this is the natural result. You just don't shake those things. But yes, I've seen them all. They have not yet shown jaws 3D in 3D out here in Los Angeles, which I was hoping would happen at some point. I'm also embarrassed to admit that I've read the Jaws of the revenge novelization, which is famously one of the most bonkers off the rails novelizations, where the plot of the movie is so stupid itself, which is that basically the shark follows the Brody family to the Bahamas as an act of revenge, which is so incredibly stupid. I don't know how you'd make it dumber. But the novelization, which is really the novelization is really remarkable in that it's adds a subplot about a voodoo curse. And if I remember correctly, at some point toward the end there's someone on a pair of jet skis with an Uzi. I think I could be imagining that it's been a while since I read it, Brian.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I feel like we should have just an entirely separate episode down the line about movie novelizations. They still exist in some fashion, but I really do feel like in the 80s and 90s, these mass market paperback editions of movies, Batman, Dick Tracy, you would read them and there'd be like deleted scenes. They were just something very unique about them.

[Brian Raftery]

Yeah. And they were very pre spoiler culture. They were very dangerous. Because I can still tell you the date that Batman opened. It was June 23, 1989, because I was obsessed with that movie for two years. And we were flying from Hawaii to Pennsylvania about a week before the movie opened and I bought the novelization and I was like, not going to do it, not going to do it. And halfway through the flight I reached up into the luggage rack and I read the entire Batman novelization before I saw the movie. I could not resist. It was really unfortunate, but I used to love reading those. And there was a great Twitter account, I don't know if it's still around, that was collecting some of the weirder ones that I didn't even know existed. They made them for basically every movie made, it seems like from the late 60s to the mid-80s at least.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I'd love to talk about a couple of other books related to Jaws. I think there's a coffee table book and another book written by Martha's Vineyard residents. The film was filmed on Martha's Vineyard, so many locals were included in the film. Show up on screen. There are only a handful of professional actors in this movie. There are actually two novels that came out fairly recently that the Benchley Estate allowed to be written that are about Quint's backstory. One of them is called Quint by Robert Lautner and the other one is called the Book of Quint by Ryan Deco. And they're essentially prequels. Here's more details on the USS Indianapolis and here's what happened to Quint in the decades before we see him in Jaws. And then there's a very famous book that I know you have read, which is a book called the Jaws Log by Carl Gottlieb, which I just read for the first time. Extremely entertaining.

[Brian Raftery]

Carl Gottlieb, while working on Jaws, apparently took the most detailed notes about every single day of production, about writing. And it's probably one of the best behind the scenes movie books I've ever read. I've read it maybe two or three times. It's always hard to tell because it's. He does interview other people in the book, but you're definitely getting his perspective on things. I think that's probably the best source for Jaws material. There's also, when they republished Jaws last year, the Peter Benchley's novel, and maybe they did this in previous publications, but they included a lot of his papers from when he was developing the script, which I think are really interesting because I think he did really struggle to figure out how to turn his book into a movie. And I think a lot of authors have a hard time doing that. It's very rare for an author to actually tackle the adaptation of their own book, because it's either a skill set they don't have, or they grow too close to certain materials. But he was definitely going back and forth with the producers about some of his ideas and really fighting to get his stamp on the movie. But the Jaws log is delightful. I think if you watch the movie, then read Jaws, then read the Jaws log, that might be the best way to experience all these different Jaws stories, because the movie is the best. And because I think when you read the book afterward and you see what they cut, you can look back at the movie and say, oh, this was augmenting this little aspect here and there.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Brian, I know you're working on a project right now that also has to do with some famous books that were adapted into movies.

[Brian Raftery]

I'm working on what's actually kind of a biography of Hannibal Lecter, one that's reported. I've talked to dozens of people for this. But it's looking at how Hannibal Lecter went from this kind of very ancillary character in one book to now this absolutely global brand of a beloved villain. And obviously, Thomas Harris, who wrote all those novels, almost everything he's written has been adapted. And famously, the Silence of the Lamb script written by Ted Talley is still taught, I think, by some people, as the premier book adaptation. And it really is remarkable, because when you read the book and then watch Silence of the Lambs, it's not a case of Jaws where there's a huge subplot here or there. It's cut out. There's a couple of things. But what Ted Talley does really well is just truly distilling everything that's great about that novel into a very tight two hours, Knowing which characters to reduce, knowing which scenes to play up. I think Ted Talley takes parts of the book that other screenwriters may have dropped and actually makes them some of the best scenes. I think the best chapter in the entire Songs of the Lambs book is When Clarice goes into this garage. To look for clues that Hannibal Lecter has led her to. And it's so suspenseful in the book. But you can see a screenwriter saying, we don't need that. Why don't we just have. Why don't we just have Hannibal giving the clue right up? But they put it in the movie. And it's the best scene in the book. Is also probably the best scene in the movie. And it's just Jodie Foster, for five or six minutes. Kind of stumbling around his garage. And it's absolutely terrifying. It's like. It's the most claustrophobic moment. There's a real art to adapt in novels and screenplays. And it's strange for me. Because I'm not someone who goes to see a movie based on a book I love. And feels very dogmatic about it, frankly. I'll read a book I love, and it'll take three years to make the movie. And by the time I see the movie, I can't remember what they cut out or not. But I think all the Hannibal Lecter novels have been adapted and approached in really interesting ways. I love Manhunter, which Michael Mann made. Which takes Red Dragon and gives it a new ending. Which some people really don't like. But some people also absolutely know as the ending of Red Dragon. So I'm always interested in how people can interpret this different material. And the Hannibal material is very interesting. Because you've had Ridley Scott's take on it. You've had Jonathan Demme's take on it. You've had Brett Ratner's take on this character. And obviously you had the TV show, too. The Hannibal TV show that was on NBC for a couple of years. Is maybe the most remarkable adaptation of anything I've ever seen. The way Brian Fuller takes all the books about Hannibal Lecter. Across decades. With different characters. And weaves them together into one big story. I've never really seen anything like that. It's at once very loyal to the material. But also incredibly experimental and individualistic. And it's a great spin on those books.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I was the TV editor here at the New York Times. When Hannibal was winding down. And I agree. I think it's a remarkable show that I think almost no one watched. It was on Friday nights on NBC, late on Fridays. Partially because it's one of the grossest shows that's ever been on tv. But it's also, paradoxically, one of the most beautiful shows that's ever been on tv. It is so unique. And I would urge anyone who has any interest in this story, these characters, to check it out wherever you can find it.

[Brian Raftery]

But not if your kids can wander into the TV room. Because it's really gnarly. It's remarkable how crazy they got away with it. So gross.

[Gilbert Cruz]

So gross.

[Brian Raftery]

Yeah.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Yeah. It's astounding.

[Brian Raftery]

Yeah. But tastefully gross, I would say. Also in a strange way.

[Gilbert Cruz]

No pun intended. Brian, thank you so much for coming on to Talk about the 50th anniversary of Jaws by Peter Benchley. The 50th anniversary of Jaws, the all time Steven Spielberg film. It's been a delight. Thank you. Thank you so much.

[Brian Raftery]

Thank you, Gilbert. Appreciate it. Always happy to talk to Jaws.

[Gilbert Cruz]

That was my conversation with Brian Raftery about Jaws, the best movie of all time. I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times Book Review. Thanks for listening.

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