Jaws 2

Jaws 2
Directed by	Jeannot Szwarc
Written by	Carl Gottlieb Howard Sackler Dorothy Tristan (uncredited)
Produced by	David Brown Richard D. Zanuck
Starring	Roy Scheider, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Jeffrey Kramer
Cinematography	Michael Butler
Edited by	Neil Travis
Music by	John Williams
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release dates	June 16, 1978
Running time	116 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Jaws 2 is a 1978 horror–thriller film directed by Jeannot Szwarc. It is the first sequel to Steven Spielberg's 1975 Oscar winning classic Jaws. Although there would be two further films in the series, Jaws 2 is generally regarded as the best of the sequels. Set four years after the events of the original film, another great white shark arrives on the shores of Amity Island. After a series of deaths and disappearances, police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) suspects that the culprit is another shark. However, he has trouble convincing the town's selectmen. He has to act alone to save the group of teenagers, including his two sons, who meet the shark during a sailing expedition.

Like the first film, the production was troubled. The original director, John D. Hancock, proved to be unsuitable for an action film and was replaced by Szwarc. Scheider was also unhappy during production and had several heated exchanges with Szwarc.

The film's tagline, "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...", became one of the most famous in movie history and has been parodied and homaged several times.

Plot

Two divers discover the wreck of the Orca, Quint's boat. As they are taking photographs, they are attacked and killed by a great white shark. The next day, Police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) receives a report that there is an abandoned yacht in the nearby channel. He orders Deputy Hendricks (Jeffrey Kramer) to investigate and recover the underwater camera from the missing divers. Meanwhile, the shark attacks a water skier and drags her into the water. The driver of the speedboat defends herself by first throwing a gasoline tank at the shark (accidentally spilling some on herself), and then igniting the fuel with a flare gun. The shark begins to burn, as does the inside of the boat and the driver. Then the fire ignites the actual gas tank, and the speedboat explodes. A woman who lives on the beach sees the explosion and reports it to the authorities. The shark manages to escape, but is severely scarred. Brody becomes suspicious after no remains of the water skier or the driver are found in the wreck. Meanwhile, Deputy Hendricks searches for the remains of the victims, accidentally hooking an underwater power line.

In addition to these strange disappearances, a killer whale bearing large wounds is beached, which Brody guesses were caused by a shark. A marine biologist, Dr. Elkins (Collin Wilcox) is skeptical, but she confirms to Brody that sharks are attracted to blood, movement, and sound, like sonar or radar. Brody has a meeting with Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) to discuss the possibility that the town is having another shark problem. Vaughn doesn't believe him and warns Brody not to do something hasty. Later, Brody spots a section of the ruined speedboat bobbing in the surf just off the beach, and when he goes to retrieve it, encounters the burnt remains of the boat driver.

That night, Brody injects sodium cyanide into a dozen cartridges. Angered by his older son Mike's (Mark Gruner) reluctance to find a summer job and concerned that he wishes to be out on the ocean sailing, he grounds him, getting him a summer job doing maintenance work at the beach. The next day, from atop an observation tower, Brody believes that he sees the shadow of a large shark approaching the bathers. He orders everyone out of the water, brandishing his gun and creating a panic, and is publicly humiliated when the shadow is revealed to be merely a school of bluefish. However, Brody's suspicions are further fueled when he also acquires prints from the diver's camera showing close-ups of the shark's eye. Brody's suspicions are not shared by the town selectmen and local developer Len Peterson (Joseph Mascolo) at a time when the town is enjoying a revival in its tourist industry. Angry with his performance on the beach, Brody is fired.

File:Jaws2 - teens.jpg

The stranded teens

The next morning, Mike sneaks out of his house to go sailing with his friends, but his younger brother Sean (Marc Gilpin) catches him and insists he be brought along. The teens head out to sea for a sailing regatta. On their way, they pass a team of divers, led by instructor Tom Andrews (Barry Coe). Moments after entering the water, Tom encounters the shark. Panicking, he rushes to the surface, causing an embolism. Meanwhile, two of the teens, Tina (Ann Dusenberry) and Eddie (Gary Dubin), are making out in the middle of the ocean when the shark bumps their boat and Eddie falls into the water. Eddie does not survive the shark attack, which leaves Tina alone in the ocean.

Brody drives Ellen (Lorraine Gary) to work, notices an ambulance speeding to the docks and follows it. They find Tom is being put into an ambulance and Brody suspects that something might have scared him below the water. Hendricks inform Brody that their sons are sailing with others, so he insists on taking the police launch to rescue them. Ellen and Hendricks join him. They encounter a floating sailboat with Tina hiding under a blanket inside. She hysterically confirms Brody's suspicions that a shark is responsible. Hendricks and Ellen take Tina into shore while Brody continues to search for the teens in the police launch. All seems well with the teens until the shark appears, bumping one of the sailboats, and causing a panic which leaves everyone ramming each other with their sailboats. Mike is knocked unconscious after banging his head on a metal fitting and is nearly eaten by the shark before two of his friends can pull him out of the water. They save Mike and head back to shore for help. The rest of the teens are floating on the wreckage and tangled boats, drifting away towards the open sea.

A Coast Guard marine helicopter spots them, and a line is rigged to tow them into shore. Before the pilot can tow them, the shark attacks one of the pontoons, causing the chopper to tilt and capsize, and drown the pilot. Sean falls into the water and is quickly saved by Marge (Martha Swatek) who heaves him up out of the water onto a floating hull, but she cannot pull herself up when the shark devours her. Brody meets Mike and he informs his father that Sean is still drifting towards Cable Junction with the others. Brody quickly finds them, but the shark appears and Brody runs the police launch aground on the rocks of Cable Junction. Brody tries to tie a rope line, but snatches an underwater power line instead. The teenagers swim to Cable Junction, and the shark manages to scrape one of the teens. Using an inflatable raft, Brody taunts the shark by pounding the power line with an oar, and entices the beast to bite on the power cable, continuously electrocuting it until it burns to its demise. Brody paddles the raft over to the sailboat wreckage and helps Jackie, one of the teens, and Sean get into the raft. He then paddles them back towards the other teens at Cable Junction.

Production history

The studio demanded a sequel early into the success of Jaws. Howard Sackler, who had contributed to the script of the original movie but chose not to be credited, was charged with writing the first draft. He originally proposed a prequel based on the sinking of the USS Indianapolis relayed by Quint in the first film. Sid Sheinberg, however, rejected the idea.

Steven Spielberg did not want to direct the sequel because he felt that he had done the "definitive shark movie." Sackler recommended theatre director John D. Hancock (who directed Let's Scare Jessica to Death), who was chosen to helm the picture. However, Sackler felt betrayed when Dorothy Tristan, Hancock's wife, was invited to rewrite his script.

Universal Studios President Sid Sheinberg suggested that his wife Lorraine Gary "should go out on a boat and help to rescue the kids". Dick Zanuck got wind of this and replied "Over my dead body". The next draft of the Jaws 2 screenplay was turned in with Gary not going out to sea.

Hancock was feeling the pressure of directing his first epic adventure film "with only three film credits, and all small-scale dramas." The producers were unhappy with his material, and on a Saturday evening in June 1977, after a meeting with the producers and Universal executives, the director was fired. He and his wife were unexpectedly whisked away to Rome and production was shut down for a few weeks. They had been involved in the film for eighteen months.

Echoing the production of the first film, Carl Gottlieb was enlisted to further revise the script, adding humor and reducing some of the violence. It cost the producers more money to hire Gottlieb to do the rewrite than it would have if they had hired him in the first place.

At this point, Spielberg considered returning to direct the sequel. Over the Bicentennial weekend Spielberg hammered out a screenplay based on Quint's "Indianapolis" speech. Because of his contract for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, however, he would not be able to film for a further year, a gap too long for the producers. Production Designer Joe Alves (who would direct Jaws 3-D) and Verna Fields (who had been promoted to vice-president at Universal after her acclaimed editing on the original film) proposed that they co-direct it. The request was declined by the DGA, partly because they would not allow a DGA member to be replaced by someone who wasn't one of its members, and partly because they, in the wake of events on the set of The Outlaw Josey Wales, had instituted a ban on any cast or crew members taking over as director during production of a film. The reins were eventually handed to Jeannot Szwarc, best known for the TV movie Bug and Night Gallery and whom Alves knew from the Night Gallery days.

Szwarc recommenced production by filming a complicated scene (the waterskier scene) which would give Gottlieb some time to write. He reinstated the character of Deputy Hendricks, played by Jeffrey Kramer, who had been missing from the original script. Many of the teenagers were sacked, with the remaining roles developed.

Three sharks were built for the film. The first was the "platform shark," also referred to as the "luxurious shark." Production designer Joe Alves and special mechanical effects designed Bob Mattey were able to use the same mold for the shark as for the original film. However, they had to redo the electronics as the originals had been left out on the lot. Mattey's design was much more complicated and ambitious than the original film. "Cable Junction", the island shown in the climax of the movie, was a floating barge that accommodated the mechanisms of the 'platform shark'. The other 'sharks' were a fin, and a full shark. Both could be pulled by boats.

Although the first film was commended for leaving the shark to the imagination until two thirds of the way through, Szwarc felt that they should show it as much as possible because the "first image of it coming out of the water" could never be repeated. Although critics complained that the additional screen time awarded to the shark makes it "seems far less terrifying than its almost mystical contemporary", Szwarc believed that the reduction of the first's Hitchcockian suspense was inevitable because the audience already knew what the shark looked like from the final third of the first film. Reviewers have since commented that "there was no way that they were ever going to duplicate the effectiveness of the original." However, the filmmakers gave it a more menacing look by scarring it in the early boat explosion.

Scheider's involvement

Roy Scheider reluctantly returned to reprise his role as Martin Brody. He had quit the role of 'Michael' in The Deer Hunter two weeks into the production because of "creative differences." Universal agreed to 'forget' about this if he appeared in Jaws 2, which they would count as the remaining two of his contractual obligations.

The atmosphere was tense on the set, and he often argued with Szwarc. The rift was articulated in written correspondence. In a letter to Szwarc, Scheider wrote that "working with Jeannot Szwarc is knowing he will never say he is sorry or ever admitting he overlooked something. Well enough of that shit for me!" He requested an apology from the director for not consulting him.

Szwarc's reply focused upon completing the film to the "best possible" standard.

Time and pressure are part of my reality and priorities something I must deal with.
You have been consulted and your suggestions made part of my scenes many times, whenever they did not contradict the overall concept of the picture.
If you have to be offended, I deplore it, for no offense was meant. At this point in the game, your feelings or my feelings are immaterial and irrelevant , the picture is all that matters.
Sincerely, Jeannot

Location

Martha's Vineyard was again used as the location for the town scenes. Although some residents guarded their privacy, many islanders welcomed the money that the company was bringing. Shortly after the production arrived in June 1977, local newspaper the Grapevine wrote:

The Jaws people are back among us, more efficient, more organized and more moneyed. Gone are the happy-go-lucky days of the first Jaws, where the big trucks roved about the Island from day to day, always highly visible with miles of cables snaking here and there over roads and lawns. Gone are the acrimonious wrangles and Select persons over noise and zoning regulations and this and that. What is still here is money -- about $2 million of it.

Many residents enjoyed being cast as extras. Some people, however, were less enthused by the presence of the film crew and refused to co-operate. Only one drugstore allowed its windows to be boarded up for the moody look that Hancock wanted. "Universal Go Home" T-shirts began appearing on the streets in mid-June.

The majority of filming was at Navarre Beach in Florida, because of the warm weather, and despite the white-sand beaches on the Gulf of Mexico hardly resembling an island on the northeast Atlantic coast. Cable Junction Island was built on a barge so that the huge mechanism of the platform shark could go underneath close to, or even underneath, it. On one occasion the set broke loose from its anchorage and had to be rescued as it drifted towards Cuba.

Real hammerhead sharks circled the teen actors during the filming of one shot. However, because their fictional personas were meant to be in distress, the crew (filming from a distance) did not realize that the actors were genuinely calling for help.

The interior shots of the teen hang-out where they play pinball were filmed in the original location of the Hog's Breath Saloon on Okaloosa Island. This restaurant has recently relocated to Destin, Florida as its original building was susceptible to hurricane damage. The original building was still vacant and derelict in January 2005. The production company had to seek dredge and fill permits from the State of Florida's Department of Environmental Regulation to sink the revised platform that controlled the shark on the sea bottom.

Music

Untitled

John Williams returned to score Jaws 2 after winning an Academy Award for Original Music Score for his work on the first film. Szwarc said that the music for the sequel should be "more complex because it was a more complex film." Williams says that this score is broader, allowing him to make more use of the orchestra, and use longer notes, and "fill the space" created by the director.

Critics have praised Williams' score, comparing it favorably to the original. Williams "uses a few basic elements of the original - the obligatory shark motif, for one - and takes the music off in some new and interesting directions." The score is "more disturbing in places" than the original, and "Williams fashion some new and hugely memorable out to sea adventure music." Because Jaws 2 "isn't a film that requires subtlety... Williams pulls out all the stops to make it as exciting and hair raising as possible."

According to the liner notes, Williams' "sense of the dramatic, coupled with his exquisite musical taste and knowledge of the orchestra definitely stamp this score as truly one of his best." It is "brilliantly performed by a mini-symphony made up of the finest instrumentalists to be found anywhere."

Due to time constraints, the film had not been completed when Williams began working on the score, "enabling him to create themes based on ideas and suggestions, rather than a locked down print." Although Mike Beek makes positive comments about the film, saying that "the music certainly elevates it to a level it would otherwise never have achieved."

Track listing

Side one (original LP)
1. Finding the "Orca" (Main Title)
2. Menu
3. Ballet for Divers
4. Water Kite Sequence
5. Brody Misunderstood
6. Catamaran Race
7. Toward Cable Junction
8. Attack on the Helicopter

Side two
9. Open Sea
10. Fire Aboard and Eddie's Death
11. Sean's Rescue
12. Attack on the Water Skier
13. Big Jolt!
14. End Title, End Cast

Reaction

File:Jaws 2 teaser.jpg

The teaser poster for Jaws 2, bearing the famous tagline.

Box office performance

According to David Brown, the film made 40% of the original. This was attractive to studios because it reduced market risk. The film was the highest-grossing sequel in history in 1978 and an all-time top 25 box office champ for more than two decades.

It opened in 640 theaters, making $9,866,023 in its opening weekend.

Critical reception

Although the film was initially met with mixed reviews, most critics agree that this is the best of the Jaws sequels. DVD Authority says "After this one, the other Jaws movies seemed to just not be as good.

One review says: "it's obviously not a patch on Spielberg's classic, but it's about as good as could be hoped for, with some excellent sequences, almost worthy of the original, several genuine shocks, a different enough story and some pretty decent characters." The performances of Scheider, Gary and Hamilton are particularly praised. The presence of Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw are missed, especially since the teenage characters are labeled "largely annoying 'Afterschool Special' archetypes" who are "irritating and incessantly screaming" and "don't make for very sympathetic victims".

Because of its emphasis upon the teenage cast some critics have compared the film to the slasher films that were rising in popularity at that time.

Cultural impact

The film's tagline, "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...", has become one of the most famous in film history. Andrew J. Kuehn, who developed the trailer for the original Jaws, is credited with coining the phrase. It has been parodied in numerous films; for example the tagline of the 1996 feature film adaptation of the television series, Flipper, "This summer it's finally safe to go back in the water."

DVD release

The film was released on DVD in 2001 and was praised for the quantity of special features, with "more than a lot of titles labeled as "Special Edition" discs." It includes a 45 minute documentary produced by Laurent Bouzereau, who is responsible for many of the documentaries about Universal films. Actor Keith Gordon reminisces in a short feature, and Szwarc explains the phonetic problems with its French title (Les Dents de la mer 2).

The disc also contains a variety of deleted scenes. One such scene shows the selectmen voting to fire Brody. The Mayor (Murray Hamilton) is the only person to vote to save him. Also included is footage of the shark attacking the helicopter and its pilot after it had capsized. The scene was cut because of the struggle with the ratings board to acquire a PG certificate.

Although the audio was presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, "Williams' score often sounds deceptively stereophonic" but "really demands the added bass that a 5.1 effort could have lent it."

References

• Loynd, Ray (1978) The Jaws 2 Log. London: W.H. Allen. ISBN 0-426-18868-3

External links

• Jaws 2 at IMDb
• Jaws 2 at Rotten Tomatoes
• Jaws 2 at Box Office Mojo
• Jaws forums, reference images and information