Jaws

Unlike most movies, the villain was perfect. Believable even. And the music! The music alone gave me goosebumps. People actually quit going to the beach for vacations because of this movie.

Jaws was the first “great” movie I ever saw. (My parents didn't take me to The Godfather, and I fell asleep in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid... don't act so shocked, y'all, I was only four!) I was ten years old for Jaws. The perfect age. Young enough that it scared the absolute bejesus out of me, but I still couldn’t look away. I am no movie music expert, and had to look up who did it, but I can remember the cold feeling I got from the Williams’ score, like there truly was ice in my veins, ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump, bump pa, bump pa, bump-bump-BAA!!! I just knew when I heard it. Hell, everyone did! People in the theater actually screamed! "Something bad is fixin' to come down 'round here, kiddoes!” And everyone stayed seated at the end of the movie! Not to read the credits mind you, but because we were all utterly exhausted.

But my favorite scene was the one with the three heroes getting drunk and telling war stories. Farewell and adieu ye fair Spanish ladies, farewell and adieu you ladies of Spain! When Quint starts telling about The Indianapolis, and being in the water with all of the sharks everywhere. Ohhhhh, but that was amazing fun. Dude sounded like a modern day pirate. I actually had a nightmare, and I lived 3 1/2 hours from the beach.

And the music was perfect, even when it wasn't shaking the theater with that BA-DUMP, BA-DUMP! Forty seven years later I can remember the song the guys sang as they got drunk... well, right up until the stupid shark interrupted them;

Show me the way to go home, bum-bum-bum, I’m tired and I wanna go to bed! Oh, I had a little drink about an hour ago, and it went straight to my head...

My wife and I, like most people, had a "classics fest" during the boredom of the pandemic. We watched a lot of great movies. Jaws has certainly stood the test of time with the best of them... maybe not as well as Butch Cassidy, but that's because it looses something on the smaller screen, and with smaller speakers, that Sundance doesn't. Jaws is one of those movies that has to be seen big and loud to really be appreciated.

I'm truly sorry for you youngsters who missed seeing it, and hearing it, in the theater, but I assure you it whooped tar out of Star Wars and ET.