Jaws in detail

JAWS was the box-office sensation of 1975 and the number-one hit movie of the decade until 1977's STAR WARS, at a time when the success or failure of a few blockbusters began to determine the course of the entire motion picture industry. Similar to several of the other huge hit movies of the 1970's, JAWS began as a novel, which was then sold to a film company prior to its publication. Yet JAWS remains solidly a …

…scenes in THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954); the shot in which Brody sets up his defense communications on the holiday beach is a direct copy of a scene in FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956); and the subjective smash-zoom shot of Brody's shocked face as he witnesses a shark attack comes from Hitchcock's VERTIGO(1958). These adaptations of past scenes and devices become creatively new under the direction of Steven Spielberg, and JAWS stands independently as a superior adventure-thriller.