"Jaws" released - June 20, 1975

On this day in 1975, the film "Jaws" was released in the U.S. and Canada.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class. It's a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey y'all, I'm Eves and welcome to This
Day in History Class, a podcast that brings you a
tidbit of history every day. Today is June. The day

(00:23):
was June n the thriller film Jaws was released, directed
by Steven Spielberg and based on the nineteen seventy four
novel by Peter Benchley. The movie was at one point
the highest grossing film. It didn't hold that title for long,
but it remains a pivotal blockbuster in Hollywood history. The

(00:44):
novel Jaws is about a great white shark that attacks
people in a resort town and the subsequent effort to
kill the shark. The author of the book, Peter Benchley,
had been interested in sharks for a while and was
considering writing a story that had to do with a shark.
He read an article about a great white shark that
fisherman Frank Monday Scott in nineteen sixty four and found
more inspiration to write Jaws. Benchley was also inspired by

(01:07):
events like the Jersey Shore shark attacks of nineteen sixteen.
After the book was published in nineteen seventy four, it
was picked up by book sales clubs and gained a
lot of traction. Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown, producers
at Universal Pictures, read the book and purchased the film rights.
Steven Spielberg, who had just directed his first theatrical feature,

(01:28):
The sugar Land Express, was chosen to direct Jaws. Filming
began in May of nineteen seventy four and Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.
Mechanical sharks were made for production, and they shot the
movie in the ocean. Technological issues and delays put production
over budget, but the malfunctions and delays are said to
have helped the movie since they required Spielberg to shoot

(01:51):
many scenes where the shark was not visible and its
presence was only hinted at. Barrels were used to represent
the shark's location, and many of the shots were just
of the shark's dorsal fin. The suspense built from not
seeing the shark has become one of the film's most
defining and memorable features. John Williams composed the score for

(02:13):
the movie, which is known for its ominous shark theme.
Principal photography went more than one hundred days over schedule.
Spielberg commented that he thought his career was over because
the film was so delayed, but Universal spent a lot
of money on marketing the film. Spielberg, e, Benchley, zand
and Brown toward cities promoting the book and movies. Universal

(02:35):
spent seven hundred thousand dollars on a TV ad campaign.
On June, Jaws was released in around four hundred and
sixty movie theaters in the US and Canada. As the
novel garnered more attention, the film gained more steam at
the box office. On June, Jaws landed on the cover

(02:55):
of Time magazine. The film was successful, so a bunch
of merchandise was created to promote its release. It was
expanded to hundreds more theaters, and by early nineteen six
it had become the highest grossing film in the world.
The film and its score won several awards. Film historians
credit Jaws with paving the way for later summer Hollywood

(03:17):
blockbusters like Star Wars. It influenced the popularity of the
summer movie season, but it also influenced a lot of
films revolving around large predatory animals and left a huge
mark on pop culture. I'm Eves, Jeff Coote and hopefully
you know a little more about history today than you
did yesterday. And if you have any commerce art suggestions,

(03:40):
you can send them to us at this day at
i heart media dot com. You can also follow us
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Thanks so much for listening to the show and we'll
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(04:02):
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