In the first brief
shot we get offshore, the camera pans left to right from the bow of one of the
shark spotter boats to reveal Hooper at the wheel. He’s dressed for the part in
the denim jeans and grey sweatshirt that he will wear for the second half of
the movie, and sports an expensive-looking diver’s watch on his wrist and a large gold signet ring on the wedding finger of his left hand.
The pleasure boat called Fascinatin’ Rhythm, unlike the the Orca, looks ill-equipped for the task of ‘sharkin’. The aluminium rails on its prow – a visual call-back to the fence motif established in the movie’s opening scene – seem more for token decoration than practicality. In Jaws lore, the boat has gained notoriety as being the one from which writer/actor Carl Gottleib fell into the ocean during the filming of an abandoned scene. Indeed, the way Gottleib describes the day’s shooting in The Jaws Log, the plucky little vessel had clearly been destined for a much bigger role in the movie:
The pleasure boat called Fascinatin’ Rhythm, unlike the the Orca, looks ill-equipped for the task of ‘sharkin’. The aluminium rails on its prow – a visual call-back to the fence motif established in the movie’s opening scene – seem more for token decoration than practicality. In Jaws lore, the boat has gained notoriety as being the one from which writer/actor Carl Gottleib fell into the ocean during the filming of an abandoned scene. Indeed, the way Gottleib describes the day’s shooting in The Jaws Log, the plucky little vessel had clearly been destined for a much bigger role in the movie:
‘Besides us three
principals [Dreyfuss, Scheider and Gottleib], there’s a technical advisor to
run the boat, Steven the director, a cameraman, a camera operator, a sound
recordist, a script supervisor, and a grip…..We shoot the dialogue for a while,
the cameraman moving around to various setups, balancing the forty-pound
Panaflex camera on his shoulder, trying not to fall into the ocean every time
the boat hits a wave.’
Yet, like Gottleib’s
own character of Meadows, the boat’s part was cut back until it had only a few
brief minutes of screen time. Bearing no ill will against the vessel or the
elements, Gottleib was generous enough to include a three-page spread of photos
of the craft and his ungainly departure from it in the expanded edition of his
classic making-of text.
