Released on June 20, 1975, and directed by Steven Spielberg for Universal Pictures, Jaws is the film most commonly credited with inventing the modern summer blockbuster. Based on Peter Benchley’s 1974 novel of the same name, it follows Police Chief Martin Brody, marine biologist Matt Hooper, and seasoned shark hunter Quint as they attempt to protect the fictional resort town of Amity Island from a marauding great white shark. The production was notoriously troubled: the mechanical shark, nicknamed “Bruce” by the crew after Spielberg’s lawyer, malfunctioned so persistently in the salt water off Martha’s Vineyard that Spielberg was forced to construct much of the film’s tension around the shark’s absence rather than its presence — a constraint that produced, by near-universal critical consensus, a far more frightening film than a fully visible creature could ever have delivered. The picture grossed over 470 million dollars worldwide against a production budget of approximately nine million, effectively establishing the template of the wide-release, heavily marketed summer event film that has governed Hollywood commercial strategy ever since. Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw delivered performances that have only grown in stature over the decades, and the John Williams score — built around one of the most recognizable two-note motifs in cinema history — became inseparable from the cultural shorthand for approaching danger.
Behind the Scenes. The casting of Robert Shaw as Quint came after Sterling Hayden was considered and ultimately passed over, and Shaw’s own contribution to the screenplay was substantial: the celebrated Indianapolis monologue, delivered in a single unbroken take in the cabin of the Orca, was largely written by Shaw himself, a published novelist, after he felt the existing draft did not do the scene justice. The shoot on the Atlantic stretched far beyond its scheduled fifty-five days, testing the endurance of cast and crew alike under conditions of genuine discomfort. Scheider, cast as the aquaphobic Brody, reportedly had no particular affinity for the ocean throughout filming — an authentic anxiety that translates directly onto the screen. The film was rated PG on its original release, a classification that strikes modern audiences as almost incomprehensibly lenient given its content, and contributed to the eventual creation of the PG-13 rating by the MPAA.
The Watch. The watch worn by Robert Shaw as Quint throughout Jaws is an Alsta Nautoscaph, a Swiss-made diver’s watch produced by Alsta Watch Co. in the early 1970s. Alsta was a relatively modest Swiss manufacturer that nonetheless produced, in the Nautoscaph, one of the more visually arresting dive watches of its era. The reference worn by Shaw features a cushion-shaped stainless steel case of approximately 42mm, a unidirectional rotating bezel with a bold minute scale, and a striking dial in deep black with large luminous hour markers and a prominent crown-protecting crown guard integrated into the case — a design element that gives the watch an aggressive, purposeful silhouette entirely in keeping with the character wearing it. The movement inside is a reliable Swiss automatic, and the water resistance specification placed it firmly in professional diver territory. The Nautoscaph occupied a curious market position: it was priced well below the Rolex Submariner and Blancpain Fifty Fathoms that defined the prestige end of the dive watch category, yet it was built to genuine tool-watch standards, with a robust case construction and legibility-first dial design that owed nothing to decoration. Its appearance on Shaw’s wrist appears, like the Baylor on Peppard’s, to have been entirely organic — a personal piece brought to set rather than the product of any formal placement arrangement, chosen perhaps for the same reasons Quint himself might have chosen it: functional, unpretentious, and built for the water. Among collectors, the Nautoscaph remained largely overlooked for decades, its manufacturer too obscure and its design too utilitarian to attract the premium commanded by better-known marques. The sustained attention generated by its appearance in one of the most watched films of the twentieth century has since rehabilitated its reputation considerably, and well-preserved examples — particularly those retaining their original dials and bezels, both vulnerable to fading and damage — now command serious interest at auction and among specialist dealers in vintage dive watches.
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Marketplace Price
€2 200
Movie Year:
1975
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