In the summer of 1975, I was 14 and my sisters were 12 and 9. Mom would not take us to see Jaws until AFTER we had returned from our trip to Florida. We went to see it one afternoon at the old Northgate Cinemas.
My two sisters and I--ages 54, 52 and 49--saw it yesterday at Cinemark Western Hills for the Sunday matinee. Our auditorium was about half-full, with at least 100 people seeing it. Everyone applauded at the end of the movie. My sisters said they really enjoyed it, as did I, and were impressed with how well it was made.
I assume Jaws has been restored, as the colors were bright and the images were sharp. I noticed only one instance of there being a flaw in the film.
I don't remember much of what we saw on the big screen 40 years ago, but I've seen Jaws on TV or video dozens of times since then. Yet seeing the movie on the big screen allowed me to notice details I never would have noticed before. This was what caught my attention:
1. As the summer season opens in Amity, there is a parade in town with the high school marching band. You see Martin walking out of the police department office, Mayor Vaughn coming down the front steps of his office, and another male character that I can't remember off the top of my head. Each one is shown closing their doors and coming down the steps in time to the music, like something you might see in a musical.
2. Martin is paging through all those shark books, and there is one drawing of a shark biting down on a tank. Did that picture give him the idea to stuff the tank in the shark's mouth and shoot at it?
3. Mayor Vaughn's sports jackets have ridiculous and ugly prints that you will only notice on the big screen.
4. The same townspeople show up in numerous scenes throughout the movie with tiny bits of commentary and conversation. The older white guys (and they are very, very white, not tan at all!) that Martin talks to throughout the movie are actually members of Amity City Council. Also, I never realized before that the man in the rowboat in the ocean pond was actually the Boy Scout leader from a few scenes earlier.
I have kept my movie ticket and will place it with my copy of the movie.
Grease (1978) will be shown at a number of theaters at 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 16, and at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 19.
Its rating has been changed. When it was originally released, it was PG. Now it is PG-13. I wonder why Grease's rating has been changed but Jaws' wasn't?
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