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The Jaws Soundtrack Album of 1975

posted 3 months ago by roger1 (2540)
23 replies | jump to latest

A bit of an "I was there" memory from 1975.

Jaws is famously "the first summer blockbuster."

(Except it isn't -- that honor should go to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, which was released on the East Coast of America in June of 1960 and then on the West Coast of America in August of 1960...back to back summer releases.)

But "when the legend becomes fact...print the legend." So, OK, Jaws WAS the first summer blockbuster -- released to a huge number of theaters coast to coast on the same day in June of 1975.

But this was still an era in which there were not many "ancillary markets" to release Jaws to for home viewing after its huge summer-into-fall run in 1975.

VHS tapes were available to "inside Hollywood people" and other rich folk...they had been INVENTED, but they weren't being DISTRIBUTED to "regular folk" yet. I guess a whole lot of legal rights neeeded to be cleared before VHS tapes could be produced and marketed with movies to the masses. I recall all this happening between 1980-1982. I bought my first VCR in 1982.

HBO existed in the 1970s(the first movie shown on HBO was Paul Newman's "Sometimes a Great Notion" from 1971) but evidently didn't have heavy national er, penetration.

In Los Angeles County only in the 70's, there was a "local" version of HBO set up mainly to serve the film industry in Hollywood -- for Oscar screenings, etc. This was called The Z Channel and I had access to it, and while i remember seeing The Sting, Chinatown, The Longest Yard and Blazing Saddles on The Z Channel, I don't remember Jaws. But then I eventually moved away and lost the Z Channel.

For most people, the first chance to watch Jaws on television came when ABC broadcast the movie as "an evcent" on the Sunday Night Movie in the "sweeps month" of November 1980 -- over five years since the movie had been released.

So we had to WAIT to see Jaws again.

But..wait..there was one other way to "experience" Jaws in the summer of 1975.

You could go out and buy the "soundtrack album" featuring selected tracks of John Wiliams famous score (which would win an Oscar)

The Jaws album was a huge bestseller -- platinum? I don't recall -- and an MCA executive quoted gloating: "We got a cash cow bestseller out of a record with an hour of a music going 'chug, chug, chug"!

Well-- not so fast there, Mr. Smarty Pants Universal-MCA executive.

I was among those who bought that album, and I found it a great way to 're-experience" at least the SOUND of Jaws, to learn how the music was used to enhance scenes and, indeed to re-experience the movie itself.

Nowhere was this more evident than in a "near the end of the record" track that began , I believe, with the music right after Quint is killed and as the shark circles around to come eat Chief Brody as the boat sinks.

Remember , I could not SEE the scene, but I could imagine it with the music. Some general cacophony(as the shark kept attacking Brody and Brody kept fending it off) and then a slowly acclerating , ever building, ever speeding along run of music that "fit" the shark coming at Brody, Brody climbing to the to of the mast(the boat has almost sunk) and the big moment:

In the movie:

Brody: Smile...you son of a bitch!
Bullet hits tank in shark's mouth.
Shark explodes
Shark sinks to bottom of ocean floor(intercut with Brody celebrating.)

On the record:

The music builds and builds and builds and then with a crash of music:

Everything stops..total silence, for quite some time(because in the movie, "smile" and explosion occur.)

But then...the music came back on as "music for dead shark to sink to the ocean floor" came on. And we could PICTURE the shark, with the tank in its mouth like an exploded cigar, and John William harps coming in to gently glide the shark carcass to the bottom.

NO, this wasn't EXACTLY like seeing the movie, but YES..one could still "see" the movie in one's mind...the opening famous slow build up (duh...duh duh...duh duh DUH) leading to the locomotive "chug chug chug" and the "scene" (on the record) of the naked young woman being taken as the first victim (again, a cacophony of jangling noises and tinkling sounds to accompany her death) well...in 1975, this was the closest thing to a VHS or a DVD or a streaming screening for rent.

Until such time as we could see Jaws again. On ABC, with all the bloody parts cut out.

I can't remember when an uncut VHS tape was released. 1982 maybe?

[–] [deleted] a month ago

[–] roger1 (2540) 21 days ago

There are some real gems that often get overlooked because of the stiffling success of the main theme, such as 'One Barrel Chase' where the menacing tone gives way to wonderful flourishes as they chase down the 'fast fish,' and it conveys Hooper's child-like sense of wonder for the shark perfectly!

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I remember hearing that stretch of music when I saw the movie the first time at the theater in 1975. I remember thinking: "Hey, this isn't sounding like a Hitchcock movie anymore -- its sounding like a DISNEY movie. Which was kind of how Spielberg rolled. This also demonstrated how Jaws mixed "adventure on the high seas" with its horror plot.

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Your original first run of the soundtrack on vinyl should be worth a pretty penny by now Roger, if you still have it?

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The short answer is: maybe. Lots of memory books and records ended up in different places. Now I'm excited, but its probably beat up wherever it is...

[–] [deleted] 20 days ago

Do you consider Jaws a 'horror' movie roger1 ?

I've never really seen it as that, though many do call it a 'horror' movie. It feels more like a 'monster' movie to me, or a 'thriller,' - and the setting is so 'unhorror' for the 70's, with it's bright and breezy setting, but I guess that's what makes it unsettling.

If I was to categorise it, I would call it a 'blockbuster' - which encapsulates a number of genres, but sets it apart as the first real monumental summer hit at the cinema.

Hope you find your vinyl copy!

*

[–] roger1 (2540) 20 days ago

Do you consider Jaws a 'horror' movie roger1 ?

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Oh, partially. Your "blockbuster" definition rather fits mine. You wrote:

--If I was to categorise it, I would call it a 'blockbuster' - which encapsulates a number of genres, but sets it apart as the first real monumental summer hit at the cinema.

--

"encapsulates a number of genres" -- THAT is what is going on in Jaws. It is a suspense thriller AND a horror movie AND an "adventure at sea" movie AND a "male buddy movie"(with three wary buddies), and (a little bit) a comedy(funny bits always help ease the tension...like Dreyfuss crushing a styrofoam cup in his hand, or Brody's sudden jump up at the shark ("We're gonna need a bigger boat.")

But it surely is a monster movie, and the shark is the monster. My own father -- a rather serious fellow of adult sensiblities, saw Jaws and told me "that was just a monster movie" as if that somehow made it less great.

By the way, I always point to Hitchcock's Psycho as ALSO being a "hybrid" -- a thriller and a horror movie, and a Gothic movie and "the first slasher movie" and (a little bit) a comedy, and it too was a blockbuster.

To the extent that I see Jaws as a horror movie, it is in the manner of ever-more-graphic deaths that occur in the film. Starting with the guy in the rowboat(who we see in the shark's jaws and whose severed leg floats to the sea bottom) and ending with the REALLY gory and graphic eating of Quint...that's horror (plus the guys head popping out of the boat hole, one eyeball dangling out of the eye socket by a nerve strand...and WAIT..much EARLIER...the discovery and examination of Chrissie's severed and chomped arm and hand...

CONT

[–] roger1 (2540) 20 days ago

If I was to categorise it, I would call it a 'blockbuster' - which encapsulates a number of genres, but sets it apart as the first real monumental summer hit at the cinema.

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"the first real monumental summer hit at the cinema." I agree with that statement, with "further explanation and an astrerisk":

ONE: Further explanation: In the 70's before Jaws hit in summer, Hollywood indeed tried to get its intended blockbusters out at CHRISTMAS: Dirty Harry, The Poseidon Adventure, The Sting, The Exorcist, The Towering Inferno. The Godfather missed a Christmas 1971 release date and went out at Easter of 1972. ..and JAWS missed a Christmas 1974 release date and went out ...perfectly...in the summer of 1975 and almost instantaneously the blockbusters moved to SUMMER. (Well, most of them - Christmas time still saw some big ones over time, like Lord of the Rings.

TWO: An "asterisk": Psycho (again.) A 1990 article in the Los Angeles Times on the 30th Anniversary of Psycho said that IT was the first summer blockbuster. A shocker. Lines around the block and up the street. Big moneymaker. But Hollywood "didn't understand its own concept." They HAD the first summer blockbuster, but they didn't know they should follow that template...not until Jaws.

Also, weirdly, Psycho had TWO summer runs: the East Coast of America in June, the West Coast of America(and the rest of America) in August. Jaws locked in "massive number of screens on the same day." In America. Today, we have "massive of number of screens on the same day" ALL OVER THE WORLD.

That's another thing about movies in the 60's. A blockbuster like "Mad Mad World" could take a YEAR to roll out in different parts of the US, for weeks in "showcase theaters" and then on to "neighborhood theaters -- at a theater or drive-in near you." It could take a year to EARN all the money on one blockbuster. Jaws broke that pattern.

--

Hope you find your vinyl copy!

Me too!

[–] [deleted] 20 days ago

Thanks for your reply, some interesting points.

Like your Dad, I think I would have gone with 'monster' movie back in the day, and definitely not 'horror' :)

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[–] DoctorThirteen (10860) a month ago

I still have my vinyl single of the main theme that my dad bought me.

[–] [deleted] 20 days ago

I never knew it was released as a single?

So I did some digging, and the track peaked at No.32 on the Billboard Hot100 in August of 1975.

Catalogue No. MCA-40439

Sweet that you still have it!

*

[–] DoctorThirteen (10860) 20 days ago

Thanks man!

[–] [deleted] 19 days ago

[–] david80848688 (232) a month ago

John Williams' scores are often one of my favorite parts of Spielberg's films, including Jaws. I'm glad the soundtrack sold well, I've heard the same thing about the Star Wars soundtrack album. I also saw in a documentary about the making of A New Hope that Lucas himself created John Williams' score enhanced the film like just like Spielberg said the score made Jaws way better.

[–] whynotwriteme (7255) 25 days ago

My older sister's boyfriend took me to see Jaws when I was ten. The amputated limbs scared me so badly I couldn't sleep for a week.

I was fascinated with this movie to the point that I got my mom to buy me a foot-long rubber shark, which I played with in the tub with my boats and toy soldiers, using a bottle of jokeshop fake blood to simulate the carnage. I would come out of the tub pink from the neck down from the red dye. I also stained the porcelain, much to my mom's dismay.

I had the soundtrack, too, but mom would not allow me to bring my record player into the bathroom for fear of electrocution, so I had to be content with humming "duh...duh duh...duh duh DUH!" as I played.

I also read the Peter Benchley novel, but it disappointed me because it was so different from the movie.

[–] DoctorThirteen (10860) 25 days ago

'I also read the Peter Benchley novel, but it disappointed me because it was so different from the movie.'

I was lucky, I read the novel shortly before seeing the movie.

[–] roger1 (2540) 21 days ago

'I also read the Peter Benchley novel, but it disappointed me because it was so different from the movie.'

I was lucky, I read the novel shortly before seeing the movie.

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Certain filmmakers have justified their remakes -- say of "True Grit" -- by saying "we aren't remaking the old movie, we are remaking the BOOK."

Well, though I love the Coens movie of True Grit, I like the original better - because the original CUT OFF the end of the book and added two better(more emotional) final scenes. The remake removed those two "new" scenes and restored the rather flat and dull end of the book.

It would be worse if they even re-made Jaws according to the book:

Hooper isn't bookish Richard Dreyfuss -- he's a studly guy.
Hooper has a graphic sexual affair with police chief Brody's wife.
Chief Brody's wife is a conniving adulterer.
Hooper gets EATEN in that shark cage, and dies.
The shark does not eat Quint. Rather, Quint gets entangled in the harpoon ropes and drowns, sinking with the dying shark.
The shark doesn't blow up(OK, maybe this was "unbelievable Hollywood overkill" but everybody chered. The shark simply collapses from the harpoon hits and dies.
And oh -- in a nod to The Godfather -- Mafia landowners are menacing the Mayor over his decisions.

[–] DoctorThirteen (10860) 21 days ago

As far as I'm concerned the movie version is the only true Jaws story. The only one of those points you've listed that I've always preferred in the book is Quint's death.

[–] roger1 (2540) 21 days ago

As far as I'm concerned the movie version is the only true Jaws story. The only one of those points you've listed that I've always preferred in the book is Quint's death.

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Interesting. I like how he dies in the movie because it is a "slow build" -- over the course of the entire movie -- as to how much we see of the shark killing/eating its victims:

The naked swimmer(the actress has died the weekend as I post this -- I'm sure there will be some posts): we don't see the shark at all.

The Kinter boy: a flash of fin circling up and over the victim.

The guy in the lifeboat: overhead shot of the shark's jaws closing on him (BOY did my audience scream) and the severed leg shot...

...and then we move into the second half of the movie(three men at sea) and NOBODY dies until it time for the major star of the film -- Robert Shaw -- to get eaten and:

we SEE the entire thing. The entire shark, chomping down on Quint as he slides into the jaws -- EVERYTHING now totally visible -- we wouldn't have wanted to have seen this done to Chrissie the woman or the boy.

So I guess we disagree a bit on Quint's death, but that's OK. I suppose in the book you could say "he went out like Ahab."

The shark blowing up -- which "Jaws" author Peter Benchley thought was ridiculous -- is such, but so satisfying(and an almost exact match for how the Death Star in Star Wars blows up after a last second turnaround-- second verse, same as the first.)

[–] DoctorThirteen (10860) 21 days ago

'The naked swimmer(the actress has died the weekend as I post this -- I'm sure there will be some posts)'

Funny you should say that, I started a thread on the Jaws board about 30 minutes ago. Very sad. I never thought of that Death Star analogy! 😂

[–] roger1 (2540) 21 days ago

Funny you should say that, I started a thread on the Jaws board about 30 minutes ago. Very sad.

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Yes. Good for you, DoctorThirteen. You're ON it! It is very sad. It was an iconic scene: a beautiful young , naked female swimmer. And she has died at...77. Yikes.

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I never thought of that Death Star analogy!

--

I rather thought of it the first time I saw Star Wars -- two summers after Jaws.

John Williams music in both sequences.

A desperate "last minute attempt" by the hero to destroy the shark/death star before it can kill him(or thousands, with the death star.)

A sudden save.
A big explosion.
John Williams music underscores the dissolution of the villain into sinking death(the shark) and starry pieces(the Death Star.)

I suppose you could say that George Lucas "homaged" the Jaws climax with the Death Star climax of Star Wars. A little in-joke. NO... a BIG in-joke.

Which reminds me: at George Lucas's request, John Williams put an homage to " Psycho" in the middle of Star Wars. As the three heroes hide under a steel grate while Storm Troopers run over it, Williams cues the "final three notes of madness" that end Psycho. Williams had used this music as a "placeholder" track in the rough cut of Star Wars, Lucas said: "Leave it in for the release print."

[–] DoctorThirteen (10860) 21 days ago

Which reminds me: at George Lucas's request, John Williams put an homage to " Psycho" in the middle of Star Wars. As the three heroes hide under a steel grate while Storm Troopers run over it, Williams cues the "final three notes of madness" that end Psycho. Williams had used this music as a "placeholder" track in the rough cut of Star Wars, Lucas said: "Leave it in for the release print."

Very interesting! Never heard that before!

[–] roger1 (2540) 21 days ago

Ha. It took me many years to first read that. Then I checked my VHS..and there it is.

Those three notes of madness are also at the tip end of "Taxi Driver," the final score composed by Bernard Herrmann before his untimely heart attack death in 1975. Though Brian DePalma's Obsession was scored before Taxi Driver(for Scorsese) , it was released AFTER Taxi Driver.

Evidently, Scorsese requested that Herrmann put the three notes of madness on at the end of Taxi Driver to make a direct link between "lonely disturbed killers" Norman Bates and Travis Bickle.

Reading all these movie books planted these stories in my brain...

[–] DoctorThirteen (10860) 21 days ago

'Evidently, Scorsese requested that Herrmann put the three notes of madness on at the end of Taxi Driver to make a direct link between "lonely disturbed killers" Norman Bates and Travis Bickle.'

That makes perfect sense.

[–] [deleted] 21 days ago

This did make me chuckle :)

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[–] ebhaynz (3602) 20 days ago

"For most people, the first chance to watch Jaws on television came when ABC broadcast the movie as "an event" on the Sunday Night Movie in the "sweeps month" of November 1980 -- over five years since the movie had been released."

Actually, ABC televised JAWS in Nov, 1979. It really was an event(Sunday Night Event!), ABC hyped the hell out of it. I was 14 years old I was at a friends house and JAWS was being shown on the TV in the corner. I had already seen in twice but I was still mesmerized it was on network TV. I remember right before a commercial break the ABC announcer would dramatically say "Jaws will return after a few short message" or something to that effect.

Quote from NY Times: "Jaws gained the distinction also of becoming the second‐highest‐rated televised movie ever, exceeded only by the first telecast of “Gone With the Wind,” in November 1976. With an estimated total audience of 80 million viewers, “Jaws” was seen in 29.7 million households. “Gone With the Wind” reached 33.9 million homes."

80 million viewers, WOW! More people saw Jaws in a 3 hour window than what probably took at least a month across thousands of theaters in 1975. All you had to do is suffer through endless/mindless commercials.

Movies on TV. Movies were so much higher quality than Network shows(sitcoms/drama's/docs, etc) that airing a movie was highly regarded, the Gold Standard of entertainment.

For those of us old enough we also remember early 1979(Feb Sweeps) where the networks aired One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Gone With the Wind, and Elvis! the same night! My family chose Cuckoo's Nest but we flipped channels during the commercials so we caught a glimpse of all 3 movies.

But in 1979. Jaws, on Network TV. Beat them all.