Jaws

I was asked about the movie Jaws recently, a classic thriller that is a favorite of mine. It brought back a memory. In the early 70's my family was on vacation in Martha's Vineyard. One day, my dad came back from town and said, "we were watching them make a movie, and boy was it boring! They kept doing the same thing over and over. That poor guy got slapped a million times!" Turns out my dad was watching Steven Spielberg direct Roy Scheider getting slapped in the face by Lee Fiero, in a scene from Jaws. For days, we watched them tow the Orca out of the harbor for filming, and hung out on the docks watching the workers weld barrels under the boat. They would sink the boat when the shark attacked, then pump air int o the barrels to raise the boat for another take. We took the bus ride out to Oak Bluffs to see the mechanical sharks (aka Bruce) stored in crates. We got a laugh out of the fact that they didn't work very well. Who knew Jaws would be such a phenomenon? Who knew that seeing a film about a shark that terrorized a beach community would end my love for evening swims? Who knew that my dad would forever think movie making was boring? Who knew, that on that vacation, I would experience movie magic? Lucky me!