Jaws by Peter Benchley
Original Title Page of Jaws
These pages reflect some of the many ideas tossed about by Peter and Wendy Benchley (and friends) for the title of the book. Many of the places referenced in these draft ideas are in Nantucket, where Peter grew up and first fished for sharks.
Not included here is a (joking) suggestion from Peter’s father, novelist Nathaniel Benchley: “What’s That Noshin’ on My Laig?”
In the end, a rapidly approaching production deadline for the book forced them to abandon all but the shortest, simplest title, even if no one could explain exactly what Jaws meant.
To read the titles listed as plain text, click here.
GREAT WHITE
WHITE NIGHT
Shimmo Night
Death in Shimmo
A Night in Shimmo
Death in Squam
Shimmo Bay
THE BEACH AT SHIMMO
Shimmo Cove
Dark Water
The Shark of Shimmo
The Grinning Fish
The Visitor to Shimmo
Polpin Rock
Dark White WHITE DARK
Shimmo Rock
The Beast of Shimmo
Squam Head
The Fish of Shimmo
Moon’s Neck
Shimmo White
Esau,
HOOPER/CLASPER
NAME CHANGE, MORE HIST?
ADRENALIN
Peter Ginkel
Letter on Mundus
Leviathan Rising
Throwback
The Coming
Horror
Haunt
The Fish
Phosphorescence
Looming
Clam Bay
Spectre
The Edge of Gloom
Maw
Endurance
Tumult
Shadow
The Survivor
The Unexplained
Penance
Hunger
Survival
Messenger
Dues
Ripple
Death From the Sea
Apparition
What have we done?
Squam
Stranger Summer
One Summer
Desserts (sp)
Tiburon (find Prtng?)
The White
Fluke
Monimoy
Requin (pron. RAH-KEEN)
White
Why?
QUIDNET
Off the Beach
Instinct
SHIMMO
Arrival
Early Summer
MOON (Town name)
Ravage
Warning
Despair
Shadows of Despair
Alarm
Beware
Giant
Portent
Menace
Scourge
Devastation
The Great Fish
Great White
A Question of Evil
Anthropophagus
OMNIVORE
HAVOC
White Evil
White Menace
Jaws of Despair Terror
Anguish
The Fish
In the
A Time of
Out of
In with stillness
Town
“ ”
Amity
Hiram
In the stillness
“ ” presence
Requiem White
Dread
Fury
Chill
Harpoon
A Dreadful Stillness
A Question of Evil
An elegant (splendid) presence
“ ” evil
Man Eater
Out of the Stillness
An Awful Stillness
Leviathan (Linnaues-Jonah)
The image of evil
“ presence of evil
Presence
Primeval
Infinite evil
Primordial
Evil infinite
Survival
Sacrifice
Vision
Brute White
Vengeance
A Question of Vengeance
Amity
Rollie
The Scourge of Amity
Dreadful Silence
JAWS OVER AMITY
The Fish at Amity
PISCES REDUX
PAST
Letter from Peter Benchley to David Brown, Producer of the Film Version of Jaws
Peter’s letters were often filled with funny and/or facetious asides. He and David Brown (whom Peter described as “one of the most gracious, kindly, generous and thoughtful producers ever to work in the fetid swamps of Hollywood”) had early in their relationship developed a trust, which allowed them to communicate honestly. David had asked Peter for his candid feedback on drafts of the screenplay for Jaws. The following letter is Peter’s candid feedback—along with some flip remarks to leaven the criticism.
At the very end, Peter included a clipping, which had apparently misstated the release date of the movie. His joking remark about being “angry” belies his immense affection for David Brown. And, as he admits in the letter, a film is the director’s project. Peter greatly appreciated what Steven Spielberg’s dedication and genius had added to his story.
15 April, 1974
Dear David:
As I mentioned on the phone this morning, I am deeply troubled by some things in the final draft screenplay of “Jaws.” I fear that if they were ever to appear on the screen, the picture would be hooted at—not just by shark-freaks, but by general audiences, too—as an insane farce. Furthermore, I think they detract for the suspense of the film.
I have several other, less important, reservations, and I’ll mention them in descending order of concern.
First and most critical of all is the “rogue shark” concept. You said that Steve apparently consulted some authority before taking this new tack. I, too, have consulted authorities, and my sources agree with me that the concept is totally absurd. I’ll be glad to argue specifics any time, but rather than write you a thesis here and now, I’d prefer to offer one artistic argument against the rogue-shark thing: if you present this shark as a world-girdling maniac, responsible for nearly every recorded shark-attack death, you destroy one of the central horrors of the story—namely that a shark doesn’t have to be deranged to eat people. Eating people is normal, instinctual behavior for great white sharks. There is profound terror in the normalcy of killing.
Also, to have Hooper claim to have tagged this shark reduces its menace and mystery. It makes the shark approachable and familiar.
That leads me to Hooper, who, in general, strikes me as an insufferable, pedantic little schmuck—not only pedantic, but ignorantly so, since many of the things he says about sharks are either misleading or flatly wrong. He sounds like a textbook full of errors. Again, I’ll cite chapter and verse to anyone who cares to listen.
Now, on to a few specific things that bothered me. I have tried to avoid picking nits (things like the horseshoe crabs). And the things that trouble me least (which you may well consider nits) I’ve saved for last.
Ellen’s gimmick with the travel brochures seems phony as hell. First of all, it’s a terrible cliche. Second, if she’s married to Brody, she should realize what his position is. She comes off as a nag, and since she vanishes almost immediately, we’re left with a vague, unresolved sense that Brody has an unhappy marriage.
P. 13—Meadows’ speech about sharks and their swim bladders is wrong. He’s mixing apples and oranges, and he compounds the felony by saying, “Don’t you know anything about them?”
P. 40—Hooper would never be suckered into believing that a ten-foot blue shark killed those people. Never.
P. 44—Brody seems here to be disbelieving the blue-shark theory. When did he change his mind?
P. 48—And when did Hooper suddenl
P. 55—Hooper claims to have seen the white shark before, and at close range. So how come he says it’s only 17 feet long?
P. 65—Hooper says of the shark, “It knows where you live.” He is anthropomorphizing, something that he would be the first to argue against. God, he’s an inconsistent character!
P. 78—What suddenly changes Brody from a man terrified of the water to a man eager to join Quint? I remember discussing this change-of-heart at great length. It seems to have been resolved by ignoring it.
The following are relatively minor:
P. 5—The bloody billboard is still there, I see. I feebly repeat that it is way out of character for the town.
P. 23—Someone named Denherder makes a reference to a sporting charter on Valentine’s Day. I know of no one on the East Coast who would go fishing on February 14th, for, among other reasons, there are no game fish around on February 14th.
P. 24—Brody says, “But nobody sport-fishes for sharks!” If this is intended to make him seem stupid, it succeeds. If it is meant as a fact, it is wrong.
P. 30—If Hooper is a diver, he’s unlikely to be bearded. Beards get in the way. Bearded divers exist, of course, but why even raise the question in the audience’s mind?
P. 35—This, I admit, is a nit, but I’ll pick it anyway. Here and on the following page it is clear that Steve doesn’t know guns. Fine. I assume there will be someone on location who will know that, for instance, a .30 caliber rifle doesn’t fire a ‘wad’ and couldn’t ruin rigging.
P. 76—Hooper refers to Ipswitch, Maine. There may be an Ipswitch, Maine, but a more familiar Ipswich is in Massachusetts.
There you have it. I am aware that 1) film is a directors’ medium, 2) my part in the entertainment has long since technically ended, and 3) you may well decide to make this letter into a paper airplane and skim it off the top of the Tower. But I did want to convey these points, if only to vent my spleen.
As I have said (and said, and said), I would be willing—nay, eager—to meet and work with Steve, should he deem it helpful.
Yrs,
Peter Benchley
PS/ What makes me angriest of all is that you didn’t tell me you had already made and released the movie of “Jaws.” I had to find out from the clipping I’ve appended below.
The studio art direction crew works with one of the three mechanical prop sharks that were created for Jaws by set designer Joe Alves, and nicknamed “Bruce” after Steven Spielberg’s attorney, Bruce Ramer. Copyright Edith Blake
A team of effect technicians, supervised by the renowned mechanical effects genius Bob Mattey, accompanies Bruce out to sea for filming. Copyright Edith Blake
One of two “platform sharks” (this one being the camera-left-to-right-shot version of Bruce) being towed out to sea for filming; its hidden side fully exposes the internal machinery that allowed the shark to move. Copyright Edith Blake
The camera-right version of Bruce is towed out to sea for filming. Copyright Edith Blake
Quint, captain of the Orca (played by Robert Shaw), and ichthyologist Matt Hooper (played by Richard Dreyfuss) are confronted by the great white shark. Copyright Edith Blake
Chief Brody (played by Roy Scheider) with Matt Hooper in Orca’s stern, shouting out that the great white shark is close at hand, while Quint looks down from the captain’s deck. Copyright Edith Blake
“Great White: Deep Trouble”
by Peter Benchley
National Geographic, April 2000
“Haai op die aas.” Spoken casually, without a hint of alarm, the words meant nothing to me: a puff of incomprehensible Afrikaans. But the crew suddenly tensed, and their tenseness was contagious. Conversations stopped. Cameramen reached for their gear; the soundman rolled his tape. More than a dozen of us, crowded onto two tiny boats rafted together five miles off the tortuous shore of Gansbaai, South Africa, froze and watched the water.
Andre Hartman pointed aft to a spot a few yards behind the outboard motors. “Haai op die aas,” he said again, and this time his meaning was clear. “Shark on the bait.”
The glass-calm sea was sliced by a steel gray dorsal fin. Behind it—at least six or seven feet behind—the blade of a crescent tail swept side to side, propelling the torpedo body toward us.
Slowly, smoothly, Andre drew in a rope whose end was knotted around and through the skull and entrails of a small cow shark. The big shark followed. No one asked what kind of shark it was; there was no question. Everything about it, from its size to its color to its shape to the cold ineluctability of its assault, broadcast its identity: Great White Shark.
I could see the body now, gray dappling brown as sunlight flooded the misty blue-green water, and I recalled words I hadn’t thought of since I wrote them more than a quarter of a century ago: “The mouth was open just enough to permit a rush of water over the gills. There was little other motion: an occasional correction of the … course by the slight raising or lowering of a pectoral fin—as a bird changes direction by dipping one wing and lifting the other.”
Andre lifted the bait aboard and dropped it in a box. Quickly he knelt on the wood square mounted between the two motors. Bracing himself with his left hand, he plunged his right into the water, just as the pointed snout and great conical head reached the first motor.
“For God’s sake, Andre,” I said, “what.…”
His hand grabbed the snout, moving it away from the shaft of the motor, guiding the head of the shark up as it rose out of the water.
There, in an instant, was the mouth, the most notorious mouth in nature, the upper jaw dropping into view, extending its rank of serrated triangular daggers, the lower jaw falling open, studded with the needle-sharp grabbing teeth that, more than a century ago, gave the animal its scientific moniker: Carcharodon carcharias, “ragged-toothed” one.
Andre’s hand cupped the snout, almost caressing it, and as his arm straightened, the enormous head eased back and rose even farther into the air. And there it stayed, motionless, vertical, suspended—apparently—by some mystical connection with Andre.
No one spoke. No one breathed. The only sound was the motor drive on David Doubilet’s camera as it captured frame after frame of man mesmerizing monster.
The moment seemed endless. In fact, it lasted—what, two seconds? perhaps five?—until Andre pulled his hand back. For one more heartbeat the shark remained suspended, and then—easily, gracefully—it half-slid, half-fell backward, slipped beneath the surface, and, its massive white belly gleaming up at us, appeared to swoon down into the gloom.
Still nobody spoke. We gawked at each other.
At last Andre grinned and said, “The first time it was an accident. I was just trying to shoo a shark away from the motor. Sharks are drawn to motors by their electrical signals and have a habit of biting them to see if they’re edible—that’s how they decide what and what not to eat—and sometimes they’ll knock out a bunch of their teeth.” A former commercial fisherman and champion spear-fisherman, Andre has been living side by side with great white sharks for years. “Anyway, my hand landed on its nose, and it sort of paused, so I kept it there, and when I did let go, the shark snapped and snapped, like it was searching for whatever it was that had hypnotized it.”
David and I exchanged a glance. The shark’s reaction struck us both as quite similar to the phenomenon scientists call tonic immobility. We had heard that other sharks, smaller sharks, can be made to pause in a kind of suspended animation when turned over on their backs. Had Andre’s hand somehow had the same effect, perhaps by interrupting the flow of sensory signals that activate the shark’s brain? Or perhaps Andre actually overstimulated the shark’s sensory organs. No one knows. Maybe the shark simply grew confused by being unable to reach something with its jaws that it sensed was nearby.
What I do know is that neither David nor I had ever heard of, let alone seen, such behavior between a human being and the most feared of all t
By now, however, we were growing used to the unusual, for in nearly every encounter we had had with great whites over the past six months, from the stormy Southern Ocean off Australia to here on the southeastern tip of the African continent, the magnificent animals seemed intent on defying conventional wisdom and confounding the experts.
The more we learned, the more we realized how little is really known about great whites. Despite vast leaps of knowledge since Jaws was published in 1974, no one—not scientists, fishermen, or divers—yet knows for certain such basic things as how big they can be (how long, how broad, how heavy), how many years they can live, how many of them exist, when and where they mate, how many young they can carry, where they spend their time, and what, specifically, impels one great white shark to attack, kill, and consume a human being and another to bite and spit out the same hapless sort of victim.
I became convinced, too, that considering the knowledge accumulated about great whites in the past 25 years, I couldn’t possibly write Jaws today … not in good conscience anyway.
Back then, it was generally accepted that great whites were anthropophagous (they ate people) by choice. Now we know that almost every attack on a human is an accident: The shark mistakes the human for its normal prey.
Back then, we thought that once a great white scented blood, it launched a feeding frenzy that inevitably led to death. Now we know that nearly three-quarters of all bite victims survive, perhaps because the shark recognizes that it has made a mistake and doesn’t return for a second bite.
Back then, we believed that great whites attacked boats. Now we know that their sensory systems detect movement, sound, and electrical fields (such as those caused by metal and motors) in water, and when they approach a boat, they’re merely coming to investigate. (Granted, investigation by a 3,000-pound animal can wreak havoc.)
Finally, back then, it was OK to demonize an animal, especially a shark, because man had done so since the beginning of time, and, besides, sharks appeared to be infinite in number.
No longer. Today we know that these most wonderful of natural-born killers, these exquisite creatures of evolution, are not only not villains, they are victims in danger of—if not extinction quite yet—serious, perhaps even catastrophic, decline. Much of the evidence is anecdotal: Fishermen and naturalists are seeing fewer great whites, and in most places those they are seeing are younger and smaller.