Jaws (novel)

1974 novel by Peter Benchley

Jaws

Cover of the first hardcover edition, illustrated by Paul Bacon

Author| Peter Benchley
Cover artist| Paul Bacon (hardcover)
Roger Kastel (paperback)
Country| United States
Language| English
Genre| Thriller
Publisher| Doubleday (hardcover)
Bantam (paperback)

Publication date

| February 1974[1]
Pages| 278
LC Class| PS3552.E537

Jaws is a novel by American writer Peter Benchley, published in 1974. It tells the story of a large great white shark that preys upon a small Long Island resort town and the three men who attempt to kill it. The novel grew out of Benchley's interest in shark attacks after he learned about the exploits of Montauk, New York shark fisherman Frank Mundus in 1964. Doubleday commissioned him to write the novel in 1971, a period when Benchley worked as a freelance journalist.

Through a marketing campaign orchestrated by Doubleday and paperback publisher Bantam Books, Jaws was incorporated into many book sales clubs catalogues and attracted media interest. After first publication in February 1974, the novel was a great success, with the hardback remaining on the bestseller list for 44 weeks and the subsequent paperback edition selling millions of copies the following year. Reviews of the novel were mixed, with many literary critics finding the prose and characterizations amateurish and banal, despite the novel's effective suspense.

Film producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown read the novel before its publication and purchased the film rights. Steven Spielberg was selected to direct the movie adaptation, Jaws, released in June, 1975. The film omitted all of the novel's subplots and focused primarily on the shark and the characterizations of the three protagonists. Jaws became the highest-grossing movie in history up to that time, becoming a watershed film in motion picture history and credited as the first summer blockbuster film. Three sequels followed the film, which were met with mixed to negative responses.

## Synopsis[edit]

The story is set in Amity, a fictional small, seaside resort town on the south shore of Long Island within the "Hamptons" region; the novel places it halfway between Bridgehampton and East Hampton. One night, a young woman named Christine Watkins and a man make love on the beach. Afterwards, she skinny dips alone in the ocean where she is attacked and killed by a massive great white shark. After finding her partially eaten remains washed up on the beach, investigators determine she was attacked by a shark. Amity Police chief Martin Brody orders the beaches closed, but mayor Larry Vaughan and the town's selectmen overrule him out of fear for damage to summer tourism, Amity's main source of commerce. With the collusion of Harry Meadows, editor of the local newspaper, the attack is hushed up.

A few days later, the shark kills a young boy and an elderly man within half an hour of each other. Amity's authorities hire Ben Gardner, a local fisherman to kill the shark but he disappears at sea. Brody and his deputy, Leonard Hendricks discover Gardner's deserted boat anchored off-shore, covered with large bite holes, one of which has a massive shark tooth stuck in it. Blaming himself for the latest deaths, Brody again attempts to close the beaches, while Meadows investigates the Mayor's business contacts to find out why he is determined to keep the beaches open. Meadows discovers Vaughan has ties to the Mafia, who are pressuring the mayor to keep the beaches open in order to protect the value of Amity's real estate, in which the Mafia has invested a great deal of money. Meadows also recruits Matt Hooper, a young ichthyologist from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for advice on how to deal with the shark.

Meanwhile, Brody's wife, Ellen is lamenting the loss of her youth and the affluent lifestyle she had before marrying Brody and having children. Coincidentally, Ellen dated Hooper's older brother a few years before meeting Brody. After Hooper attends a dinner party at the Brody's, Ellen, intent on recapturing her juvenescence and joie de vivre, decides to instigate a sexual encounter with him. The following morning, she telephones Hooper at his hotel and invites him to meet her for lunch at a restaurant several miles away from Amity. During lunch, the two have several drinks and after a sexually heated conversation, go to a motel. Unable to reach Hooper nor Ellen by phone that afternoon, Brody begins to suspect they have had a liaison and he becomes obsessed and tormented by the thought.

News of the shark attacks spread and with the beaches still open, tourists flock to Amity to glimpse the killer shark. Brody sets up patrols on the beaches to watch for the fish. After a teenage boy narrowly escapes another attack near the shore, Brody closes the beaches and hires Quint, a crusty professional shark hunter, to kill the shark. Brody and Hooper set out on Quint's vessel, the Orca and the tension between the three men soon becomes papable. Quint dismisses Hooper as a spoiled, rich kid; Hooper is angry over Quint's methods when he disembowels a blue shark and uses an illegally caught unborn baby dolphin as bait. Brody's suspicions about Hooper and Ellen increase, as more circumstantial evidence points to a possible tryst between them. A heated argument ensues with Brody strangling Hooper for several seconds.

The first two days at sea are unproductive, but the three come in contact with the shark by the end of the second day. Upon seeing the fish for the first time and estimating the shark to be at least 20 ft (6.1 m) in length and weighing in at roughly 5,000 lb (2,300 kg), Hooper is visibly excited and in awe at the size of it.

Before Brody returns home, Larry Vaughan visits the Brody house and informs Ellen that he and his wife are moving from Amity. Vaughan tells her that he always thought he and Ellen would have made a great couple. After he leaves, Ellen reflects that her life with Brody is much more fulfilling than any life she might have had with Vaughan. She realizes her mistake over her thoughts of missing the life she had before marrying Brody.

On the third day, Hooper wants to bring along a shark-proof cage, in order to take photos of the shark and then to use it in an attempt to kill it with a bang stick. Initially, Quint refuses to bring the cage on board, considering it a suicidal idea, but he relents after Hooper and Brody get into another argument. After several unsuccessful attempts by Quint to harpoon the shark, Hooper goes underwater in the shark cage. The shark attacks the cage, something Hooper did not expect. After destroying the cage, the shark kills and eats Hooper. Brody is horrified and informs Quint that the town can no longer afford to pay him, but Quint is determined to kill the shark regardless of the money.

When Quint and Brody return to sea the next day, the shark attacks the boat. After Quint harpoons it several more times, the shark leaps out of the water and onto the stern of the Orca, which tears a huge hole in the aft section, causing the boat to begin sinking. Quint plunges another harpoon into the shark's belly, but as the fish settles back into the water, Quint's foot becomes entangled in the rope attached to the harpoon, and he is pulled underwater and drowns. Brody, now floating on a seat cushion, spots the shark slowly swimming toward him; he closes his eyes and prepares for death. Just as it reaches Brody, the shark succumbs to its wounds and dies before it can attack. Slowly, the shark begins to sink. The lone survivor of the ordeal, Brody watches as the dead shark disappears into the depths and then he begins to paddle back to shore on his makeshift float.

## Development[edit]

Peter Benchley had a long time fascination with sharks, which he frequently encountered while fishing with his father Nathaniel in Nantucket.[2] As a result, for years, he had considered writing "a story about a shark that attacks people and what would happen if it came in and wouldn't go away."[3] This interest grew greater after reading a 1964 news story about fisherman Frank Mundus catching a great white shark weighing 4,550 pounds (2,060 kg) off the shore of Montauk, New York.[4][5]

Peter Benchley was inspired by a shark being captured in Montauk, New York.

In 1971, Benchley worked as a freelance writer struggling to support his wife and children.[6] In the meantime, his literary agent scheduled regular meetings with publishing house editors.[2] One was Doubleday editor Thomas Congdon, who had lunch with Benchley seeking book ideas. Congdon did not find Benchley's proposals for non-fiction interesting, but instead favored his idea for a novel about a shark terrorizing a beach resort. Benchley sent a page to Congdon's office, and the editor paid him $1,000 for 100 pages.[4] These pages comprised the first four chapters, and the full manuscript received a $7,500 total advance.[2] Congdon and the Doubleday crew were confident, seeing Benchley as "something of an expert in sharks",[7] given the author self-described "knowing as much as any amateur about sharks" as he had read some research books and seen the 1971 documentary Blue Water White Death.[2] After Doubleday commissioned the book, Benchley then started researching all possible material regarding sharks. Among his sources were Peter Matthiessen's Blue Meridian, Jacques Cousteau's The Shark: Splendid Savage of the Sea, Thomas B. Allen's Shadows in the Sea, and David H. Davies' About Sharks and Shark Attacks.[8][9]

Benchley procrastinated finishing the novel and only began writing in earnest once his agent reminded him that if he did not deliver the manuscript, he would have to return the writer's advance. As this money had been spent, Benchley had no choice. His hastily written first-draft partial manuscript was derided by Congdon, who did not like its comic tone.[2] Congdon only approved the first five pages, which made it into the published book without any revisions, and asked Benchley to follow the tone of that introduction.[4] After a month, Benchley delivered a broader outline of the story and rewritten chapters to which Congdon gave his approval. The manuscript took Benchley a year and a half to complete.[8] During this time, Benchley worked in a makeshift office above a furnace company in Pennington, New Jersey during the winter, and in a converted turkey coop in the seaside property of his wife's family in Stonington, Connecticut during the summer.[6] Congdon dictated some changes to the rest of the book, including a sex scene between Brody and Ellen which was changed to Ellen and Hooper. Congdon did not feel that there was "any place for this wholesome marital sex in this kind of book". After various rewrites, revisions, edits and sporadic advance payments, Benchley delivered his final draft of the untitled manuscript in January, 1973.[7]

### Title and cover[edit]

Bantam Books requested a new cover for the paperback edition, and the now iconic artwork by Roger Kastel was reused for the Jaws film posters.

Shortly before the book went to press, Benchley had still not chosen a title. Benchley had many working titles during development, many of which he called "pretentious", such as The Stillness in the Water and Leviathan Rising. Benchley regarded other ideas, such as The Jaws of Death and The Jaws of Leviathan, as "melodramatic, weird or pretentious".[3] Congdon and Benchley brainstormed about the title frequently, with the writer estimating about 125 ideas raised.[8] The novel still did not have a title until twenty minutes before production of the book. The writer discussed the problem with editor Tom Congdon at a restaurant in New York:

> We cannot agree on a word that we like, let alone a title that we like. In fact, the only word that even means anything, that even says anything, is "jaws". Call the book Jaws. He said "What does it mean?" I said, "I don't know, but it's short; it fits on a jacket, and it may work." He said, "Okay, we'll call the thing Jaws.[3]

For the cover, Benchley wanted an illustration of Amity as seen through the jaws of a shark.[7] Doubleday's design director, Alex Gotfryd, assigned book illustrator Wendell Minor with the task.[10] The image was eventually vetoed for sexual overtones, compared by sales managers to the vagina dentata. Congdon and Gotfryd eventually settled on printing a typographical jacket, but that was subsequently discarded once Bantam editor Oscar Dystel noted the title Jaws was so vague "it could have been a title about dentistry".[7] Gotfryd tried to get Minor to do a new cover, but he was out of town, so he instead turned to artist Paul Bacon.[10] Bacon drew an enormous shark head, and Gotfryd suggested adding a swimmer "to have a sense of disaster and a sense of scale". The subsequent drawing became the eventual hardcover art, with a shark head rising towards a swimming woman.[7]

Despite the acceptance of the Bacon cover by Doubleday, Dystel did not like the cover, and assigned New York illustrator Roger Kastel to do a different one for the paperback. Following Bacon's basic concept, Kastel illustrated his favorite part of the novel, the opening where the shark attacks Christine Watkins. For research, Kastel went to the American Museum of Natural History, and took advantage of the Great White exhibits being closed for cleaning to photograph the models. The photographs then provided reference for a "ferocious-looking shark that was still realistic."[10] After painting the shark, Kastel did the female swimmer. Following a photoshoot for Good Housekeeping, Kastel requested the model he was photographing to lie on a stool in the approximate position of a front crawl.[11] The oil-on-board painting Kastel created for the cover would eventually be reused by Universal Pictures for the film posters and advertising, albeit slightly bowdlerized with the woman's naked body partially obscured with more sea foam. The original painting of the cover was stolen and has never been recovered, leaving Bacon to speculate that some Hollywood executive now has it.[10]

## Themes and style[edit]

The story of Jaws is limited by how the humans respond to the shark menace.[12] Much detail is given to the shark, with descriptions of its anatomy and presence creating the sense of an awesome, unstoppable threat.[13] Elevating the menace are violent descriptions of the shark attacks.[14] Along with a carnivorous killer on the sea, Amity is populated with equally predatory humans: the mayor who has ties with the Mafia, a depressed, adulterous housewife and criminals among the tourists.[15]

In the meantime, the impact of the predatory deaths resemble Henrik Ibsen's play An Enemy of the People, with the mayor of a small town panicking over how a problem will drive away the tourists.[12] Another source of comparison raised by critics was Moby-Dick, particularly regarding Quint's characterization and the ending featuring a confrontation with the shark; Quint even dies the same way as Captain Ahab.[16][17][18] The central character, Chief Brody, fits a common characterization of the disaster genre, an authority figure who is forced to provide guidance to those affected by the sudden tragedy.[12] Focusing on a working class local leads the book's prose to describe the beachgoers with contempt, and Brody to have conflicts with the rich outsider Hooper.[13]

## Publication history[edit]

> "I knew that Jaws couldn't possibly be successful. It was a first novel, and nobody reads first novels. It was a first novel about a fish, so who cares?"

–Peter Benchley[3]

Benchley says that neither he nor anyone else involved in its conception initially realized the book's potential. Tom Congdon, however, sensed that the novel had prospects and had it sent to The Book of the Month Club and paperback houses. The Book of the Month Club made it an "A book", qualifying it for its main selection, then Reader's Digest also selected it. The publication date was moved back to allow a carefully orchestrated release. It was released first in hardcover in February 1974,[1] then in the book clubs, followed by a national campaign for the paperback release.[19] Bantam bought the paperback rights for $575,000,[1] which Benchley points out was "then an enormous sum of money".[3] After Bantam's rights expired years later, they reverted to Benchley, who subsequently sold the rights to Random House, who has since published all the reprints of Jaws.[8]

Upon release, Jaws became a great success. According to John Baxter's biography of Steven Spielberg, the novel's first entry on California's best-seller list was caused by Spielberg and producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown, who were on pre-production for the Jaws film, buying a hundred copies of the novel each, most of which were sent to "opinion-makers and members of the chattering class".[1] Jaws was the state's most successful book by 7 p.m. on the first day. However, sales were good nationwide without engineering.[1] The hardcover stayed on The New York Times bestseller list for 44 weeks – peaking at number two behind Watership Down – selling a total of 125,000 copies. The paperback version was even more successful, topping book charts worldwide,[20] and by the time the film adaptation debuted in June, 1975, the novel had sold 5.5 million copies domestically,[21] a number that eventually reached 9.5 million copies.[1] Worldwide sales are estimated at 20 million copies.[22] The success inspired ABC to invite Benchley for an episode of The American Sportsman, where the writer swam with sharks in Australia, in what would be the first of many nature-related television programs Benchley would take part in.[8]

### Audio adaptations[edit]

A 6-part abridged adaptation read by John Guerrasio was broadcast on BBC Radio 7 in 2008.[23] A 10-part abridged adaptation read by Henry Goodman was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2018 as part of its Book at Bedtime program.[24]

An unabridged audio adaptation read by Erik Steele was released by Blackstone Audio in both CD and downloadable format in 2009. A French translation, Les Dents de la Mer, read by Pascal Casanova was released exclusively by Audible Studios in downloadable format in 2018.[25]

## Critical reception[edit]

Despite the enormous commercial success of Jaws, reviews of the novel were mixed. The most common criticism focused on the human characters. Michael A. Rogers of Rolling Stone declared that "None of the humans are particularly likable or interesting" and confessed the shark was his favorite character "and one suspects Benchley's also."[26] Steven Spielberg shared the sentiment, saying he initially found many of the characters unsympathetic and wanted the shark to win, a characterization he changed in the film adaptation.[4]

Critics also derided Benchley's writing. Time reviewer John Skow described the novel as "cliché and crude literary calculation", where events "refuse to take on life and momentum" and the climax "lacks only Queequeg's coffin to resemble a bath tub version of Moby-Dick."[17] Writing for The Village Voice, Donald Newlove declared that "Jaws has rubber teeth for a plot. It's boring, pointless, listless; if there's a trite turn to make, Jaws will make that turn."[27] An article in The Listener criticized the plot, stating the "novel only has bite, so to say, at feed time," and these scenes are "naïve attempts at whipping along a flagging story-line."[28] Andrew Bergman of The New York Times Book Review felt that despite the book serving as "fluid entertainment", "passages of hollow portentousness creep in" while poor scene "connections [and] stark manipulations impair the narrative."[29]

Some reviewers found Jaws's description of the shark attacks entertaining. John Spurling of the New Statesman asserted that while the "characterisation of the humans is fairly rudimentary", the shark "is done with exhilarating and alarming skill, and every scene in which it appears is imagined at a special pitch of intensity."[30] Christopher Lehmann-Haupt praised the novel in a short review for The New York Times, highlighting the "strong plot" and "rich thematic substructure."[31] The Washington Post's Robert F. Jones described Jaws as "much more than a gripping fish story. It is a tightly written, tautly paced study," which "forged and touched a metaphor that still makes us tingle whenever we enter the water."[32] New York reviewer Eliot Fremont-Smith found the novel "immensely readable" despite the lack of "memorable characters or much plot surprise or originality"; Fremont-Smith wrote that Benchley "fulfills all expectations, provides just enough civics and ecology to make us feel good, and tops it off with a really terrific and grisly battle scene".[18]

In the years following publication, Benchley began to feel responsible for the negative attitudes against sharks that his novel engendered. He became an ardent ocean conservationist.[4] In an article for the National Geographic published in 2000, Benchley writes "considering the knowledge accumulated about sharks in the last 25 years, I couldn't possibly write Jaws today ... not in good conscience anyway. Back then, it was generally accepted that great whites were anthropophagus (they ate people) by choice. Now we know that almost every shark attack on a human is an accident: A shark mistakes a human for its normal prey."[33] Upon his death in 2006, Benchley's widow Wendy declared the author "kept telling people the book was fiction", and comparing Jaws to The Godfather, "he took no more responsibility for the fear of sharks than Mario Puzo took responsibility for the Mafia."[16]

## Film adaptation[edit]

Main article: Jaws (film)

Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown, film producers at Universal Pictures, both heard about the book before publication at the same time. Upon reading it, both agreed the novel was exciting and deserved a feature film adaptation, even if they were unsure how to accomplish it.[3] Benchley's agent sold the adaptation rights for $150,000, plus an extra $25,000 for Benchley to write the screenplay.[7] Although this delighted the author, who had very little money at the time,[3] it was a comparatively low sum, as the agreement occurred before the book became a surprise bestseller.[34] After securing the rights, Steven Spielberg, who was making his first theatrical film, The Sugarland Express, for Zanuck, Brown and Universal, was hired as the director.[35] To play the protagonists, the producers cast Robert Shaw as Quint, Roy Scheider as Brody and Richard Dreyfuss as Hooper.[36]

Benchley's contract promised him the first draft of the Jaws screenplay. He wrote three drafts before passing the job over to other writers;[34] the only other writer credited beside Benchley was the author responsible for the shooting script, actor-writer Carl Gottlieb who appears in the film as newspaper editor Harry Meadows.[36] Benchley also appears briefly in the film, playing a TV news reporter.[37] For the adaptation, Spielberg wanted to preserve the novel's basic concept while removing all of Benchley's subplots and altering the characterizations, having found all of the characters of the book unlikable.[34] Among the major changes were the removal of the adulterous affair between Ellen Brody and Matt Hooper and Mayor Larry Vaughn's connections to the mafia.[38] Quint became a survivor of the World War II USS Indianapolis disaster,[39] and changing the cause of the shark's death from extensive wounds to a scuba tank explosion.[40] The director estimated the final script had a total of 27 scenes that were not in the book.[38] Amity was also relocated; while scouting the book's Long Island setting, Brown found it "too grand" and not fitting the idea of "a vacation area that was lower middle class enough so that an appearance of a shark would destroy the tourist business." Amity was thus changed from a coastal town on Long Island, to a small island in New England, filmed on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.[41]

Released in theaters in 1975, Jaws became the highest-grossing film ever at the time, a record it held for two years until the release of Star Wars.[42][43] Benchley was satisfied with the adaptation, noting how dropping the subplots allowed for "all the little details that fleshed out the characters".[8] The film's success led to three sequels, with which Benchley had no involvement despite them drawing on his characters.[44] According to Benchley, once his payment of the adaptation-related royalties got late, he called his agent and she replied that the studio was arranging a deal for sequels. Benchley disliked the idea, saying, "I don't care about sequels; who'll ever want to make a sequel to a movie about a fish?" He subsequently relinquished the Jaws sequel rights, aside for a one-time payment of $70,000 for each one.[8]

## References[edit]

1. ^ a b c d e f Baxter 1997, p. 120.
2. ^ a b c d e Benchley 2006, pp. 14–17.
3. ^ a b c d e f g Bouzereau, Laurent (1995). "A Look Inside Jaws: From Novel to Script". Jaws: 30th Anniversary Edition DVD (2005). Universal Home Video.
4. ^ a b c d e Dowling, Stephen (February 1, 2004). "The book that spawned a monster". BBC News. Retrieved January 19, 2009.
5. ^ Downie, Robert M. Block Island History of Photography 1870–1960s, page 243, Volume 2, 2008
6. ^ a b Hawtree, Christopher (February 14, 2006). "Peter Benchley: He was fascinated by the sea, but his bestselling novel tapped into a primeval fear of the deep". The Guardian. Retrieved August 18, 2008.
7. ^ a b c d e f Morgan, Ted (April 21, 1974). "Sharks". The New York Times Book Review. Retrieved March 18, 2015.
8. ^ a b c d e f g Gilliam, Brett (2007). "Peter Benchley: The Father of Jaws and Other Tales of the Deep". Diving Pioneers and Innovators. New World Publications. ISBN 978-1-878348-42-5. Retrieved March 18, 2015.
9. ^ Perez, Steve (December 15, 2004). "'Jaws' author explores sharks' territory". San Diego Union-Tribune. Retrieved August 18, 2008.
10. ^ a b c d Marks, Ben (June 29, 2012). "Real Hollywood Thriller: Who Stole Jaws?". Collectors Weekly. Retrieved December 1, 2014.
11. ^ Freer, Ian. "The Unsung Heroes of Jaws". Empire. Retrieved December 1, 2014.
12. ^ a b c Sutherland, John (2010). "10: Jaws". Bestsellers (Routledge Revivals): Popular Fiction of the 1970s. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-83063-1. Retrieved March 18, 2015.
13. ^ a b Curtis, Bryan (February 16, 2006). "Peter Benchley – The man who loved sharks". Slate. Retrieved March 18, 2015.
14. ^ Willbern, David (2013). The American Popular Novel After World War II: A Study of 25 Best Sellers, 1947–2000. McFarland. pp. 66–71. ISBN 978-0-7864-7450-9.
15. ^ Andriano, Joseph (1999). Immortal Monster: The Mythological Evolution of the Fantastic Beast in Modern Fiction and Film. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 17–23. ISBN 0-313-30667-2.
16. ^ a b Nelson, Valerie J. (February 13, 2006). "Peter Benchley, 65; 'Jaws' Author Became Shark Conservationist". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 18, 2015.
17. ^ a b Skow, John. "Overbite". Time. Vol. 103. February 4, 1974. p76.
18. ^ a b Fremont-Smith, Eliot. "Satisfactions Guaranteed" New York – January 28, 1974.
19. ^ Gottlieb 1975, pp. 11–13.
20. ^ Benchley 2006, p. 19.
21. ^ "Summer of the Shark". Time. New York City. June 23, 1975. Archived from the original on June 19, 2009. Retrieved December 9, 2011.
22. ^ Knight, Sam (February 13, 2006). "'Jaws' creator loved sharks, wife reveals". The Times. London. Retrieved January 26, 2008.
23. ^ "Jaws". BBC Radio. BBC. 2008. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
24. ^ Goodman, Henry (September 1, 2018). "Jaws by Peter Benchley". BBC Radio. BBC. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
25. ^ Casanova, Pascal (June 28, 2018). Les dents de la mer. Amazon. Retrieved August 22, 2018 - via Audible.com.
26. ^ Rogers, Michael. "Jaws review". Rolling Stone. April 11, 1974. p75.
27. ^ Newlove, Donald. The Village Voice. February 7, 1974. pp. 23–4.
28. ^ The Listener. Vol. 91. May 9, 1974. p. 606.
29. ^ Bergman, Andrew. "Jaws'. The New York Times Book Review. February 3, 1974. p14.
30. ^ Spurling, John. New Statesman. Vol. 87. May 17, 1974. p703.
31. ^ Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher. "A Fish Story ... or Two" The New York Times – January 17, 1974.
32. ^ Jones, Robert F. "Book World", The Washington Post. Sunday, January 27, 1974. p3.
33. ^ Benchley, Peter (April 2000). "Great white sharks". National Geographic: 12. ISSN 0027-9358.
34. ^ a b c Brode 1995, p. 50.
35. ^ McBride 1999, p. 232.
36. ^ a b Pangolin Pictures (June 16, 2010). Jaws: The Inside Story (Television documentary). The Biography Channel.
37. ^ Bouzereau, Laurent (1995). "A Look Inside Jaws: Casting". Jaws: 30th Anniversary Edition DVD (2005). Universal Home Video.
38. ^ a b Friedman & Notbohm 2000, pp. 11–12.
39. ^ Vespe, Eric (Quint) (June 6, 2011). "Steven Spielberg and Quint have an epic chat all about JAWS as it approaches its 36th Anniversary!". Ain't It Cool News. Retrieved January 2, 2012.
40. ^ Bouzereau, Laurent (1995). "A Look Inside Jaws: Climax". Jaws: 30th Anniversary Edition DVD (2005). Universal Home Video.
41. ^ Priggé, Steven (2004). Movie Moguls Speak: Interviews with Top Film Producers. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. p. 7\. ISBN 0-7864-1929-6.
42. ^ Fenner, Pat. C. (January 16, 1978). "Independent Action". Evening Independent. p. 11–A.
43. ^ New York (AP) (May 26, 1978). "Scariness of Jaws 2 unknown quantity". The StarPhoenix. p. 21.
44. ^ Kidd, James (September 4, 2014). "Jaws at 40 – is Peter Benchley's book a forgotten masterpiece?". The Independent. Retrieved January 28, 2015.

## Sources[edit]

* Baxter, John (1997). Steven Spielberg: The Unauthorised Biography. London: Harper Collins. ISBN 0-00-638444-7.
* Benchley, Peter (2006). Shark Life: True Stories About Sharks & the Sea. New York: Random HouseCollins. ISBN 0-307-54574-1.
* Brode, Douglas (1995). The Films of Steven Spielberg. New York: Carol Publishing. ISBN 0-8065-1951-7.
* Capuzzo, Michael (2001). Close to Shore: A True Story of Terror in an Age of Innocence. New York: Broadway Books. ISBN 0-7679-0413-3.
* Ellis, Richard (1983). The Book of Sharks. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. ISBN 0-15-613552-3.
* Fernicola, Richard G. (2002). Twelve Days of Terror: A Definitive Investigation of the 1916 New Jersey Shark Attacks. Guilford, Conn.: The Lyons Press. ISBN 1-58574-575-8.
* Friedman, Lester D.; Notbohm, Brent (2000). Steven Spielberg: Interviews. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 1-57806-113-X.
* Gottlieb, Carl (1975). The Jaws Log (in German). New York, New York: Dell. ISBN 978-0-440-14689-6.
* McBride, Joseph (1999). Steven Spielberg: A Biography. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80900-1.
* Yule, Andrew (1996). Steven Spielberg: Father to the Man. London: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-91363-4.

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