The Magic of Peter Benchley's "Jaws" Quiz

Answer: An efficient killing machine

Peter Benchley wanted to write a novel about a shark after learning a Great White had been caught off Long Island. (Incidentally, the book was set in a Long Island seaside town, but the movie was set on an island in New England). The shark is portrayed as an efficient killing machine, not an evil monster.

His shark commanded respect, not just fear. Some of the description is almost flawless prose: "The great fish moved silently through the water, propelled by short sweeps of its crescent tail. 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 apparently aimless course by the slight raising or lowering of a pectoral fin-as a bird changes direction by dipping one wing and lifting the other.

The eyes were sightless in the black, and the other senses transmitted nothing extraordinary to the small, primitive brain...it survived only by moving".

Answer: He is a local

There is quite a difference between the book Brody and the movie Brody. While they are both the police chief of a small seaside resort town called Amity, Brody in the book is not a likeable character. Perhaps this is one area in which the movie is better.

It gives him a back story and, with his fear of water, he steps on a boat to hunt a shark, telling everyone he is going fishing. This is where he endears himself to viewers. Readers have no such sympathetic loyalty.

Answer: A nasty Ivy League narcissist

In the novel Hooper is glib, arrogant and obnoxious. He is particularly young. He flaunts his family's wealth. He does not get along with either Chief Brody or Captain Quint. While they are on the boat, Brody tries to strangle him. As a reader we take a dislike to him. There are two major events that occur subsequently in the book that make it clear why we are supposed to feel like this.

Answer: She has an affair with Hooper

In the movie, Ellen Brody is a loving mother and wife. The look on actress Lorraine Gary's face when she sees how her husband interacts with their four year old son in the opening scenes is priceless. Yet in the book, she is a hard nosed New York socialite who holidayed in Amity every summer and fell for the local Police Chief.

She becomes bitter at the quiet life and wants to go back to NYC. She has an affair with Matt Hooper, in seedy motels around Amity. None of these three characters, in the book, are likeable.

Answer: Orca

Quint is portrayed as being mean in the novel. He illegally uses dolphins as shark bait; he eviscerates a young shark and watches it consume its own body when trailed in the water to attract larger sharks. In the movie you dislike him, but then get to respect him. In the novel you just dislike him, full stop.

Answer: Movie Only

The monologue from the movie screenplay is "Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, chief. It was comin' back, from the island of Tinian to Laytee, just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen footer. You know how you know that when you're in the water, chief? You tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know... was our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. Huh huh. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, chief. The sharks come cruisin'. So we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know it's... kinda like ol' squares in battle like a, you see on a calendar, like the battle of Waterloo. And the idea was, the shark comes to the nearest man and that man, he'd start poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark would go away. Sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark, he's got...lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'. Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white. And then, ah then you hear that terrible high pitch screamin' and the ocean turns red and spite of all the poundin' and the hollerin' they all come in and rip you to pieces.
Y'know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men! I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand! I don't know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday mornin' chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player, boson's mate. I thought he was asleep, reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up and down in the water, just like a kinda top. Up ended. Well... he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us, he swung in low and he saw us. He's a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper, anyway he saw us and come in low. And three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and start to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened? Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb".

This is one of the greatest monologues in movie history. It defines Quint. It explains why he wants to catch the shark. It makes the audience respect him, even if they don't like him. In the book there is a backstory of sorts, but it does not reach these lofty heights. The book drew Quint, but the movie made him a richer character.

Answer: Amity mayor and local newspaper editor

Larry Vaughn is the Amity town mayor. He overrules Chief Brody when Brody wants to close the beaches. The novel goes into some detail about the town depending on income from the tourists in summer and it has extensive details about the mayor's Mafia connections (ie debts) and why he is desperate to keep the tourists in town. Harry Meadows is the amity local newspaper editor.

In conjunction with the mayor, he covers up the shark attacks. Both these roles are major ones in the novel but are only drawn sketchily in the movie.

Answer: Yes

Hooper wants to go underwater in a shark cage to kill the shark with an underwater firearm. The shark mangles the cave and kills Hooper. We have no sympathy. This is why we were meant to dislike him from earlier events. Brody then wants to shut down the hunt, but Quint just wants to kill the shark whether he gets paid or not.

In the movie, Hooper escaped from the destroyed shark cage.

Answer: A coiled rope from a harpoon snags his foot and the shark drags him under

There is something ironic in the ways Quint dies. You know he is going to die as he has no life jacket on the stricken boat. However, his death is very similar to how Captain Ahab dies on the Pequod in "Moby Dick". It seems quite fitting for Quint to die in this manner.

Answer: He dies from his injuries, and sinks, before he can grab Brody

The implausibility of a shark exploding because of a pierced air tank (the TV Show "Myth Busters" debunked this theory) spoils a good movie where the novel shark dying from its injuries is anti-climactic, except it does spare Brody, who is the sole survivor (but no hero). He paddled back to Amity after the boat had sunk.