The movie business changed during the summer of 1975. A new style of
creating, promoting and exhibiting feature films was established when
“Jaws” opened in 465 theaters and became a box office
smash.
Typically, in those days, major releases opened initially in the most
popular movie houses in a handful of large cities. Which meant the
advertising buys were all local. The unprecedented marketing strategy
for “Jaws” required enormous confidence. Its distributor, Universal, had to
spend millions on national advertising and strike enough prints
of the film to serve all of the theaters playing the film.
Before that summer was over “Jaws” had already broken all-time Hollywood box office records.
Washington D.C. was a regional hub for film distribution. Part of the
strategy for releasing “Jaws” was that Universal
chose not to screen the film for bookers and exhibitors in the usual
way.
Ordinarily, a feature about to be released would be shown a couple
of times in a small screening room downtown. Run by the
National Association of Theater Owners, it seated about 50 people.
Bookers for theater chains would see the new films to help them weigh
how much money should be bid for the rights to exhibit the picture in a
given market. But security on admission wasn't all that tight, so any
industry insider, entertainment writer, etc. might have been in the
audience on a given day.
At this time I managed the Biograph Theatre on Grace Street in
Richmond. My bosses were located in Georgetown and I saw several movies
in the DC screening room over the nearly-12 years I worked for the guys
who oversaw the Biograph on "M" Street.
The prior-to-premiere screenings of “Jaws” took place a few weeks before
it was to open. It was shown to theater owners and their guests in
selected cinemas in maybe a dozen cities. As I remember it, the screenings were all on the same night.
As a treat my bosses gave me four of their allotment of tickets to the
special screening of “Jaws” at the old Ontario in DC. My ex, Valerie, and I were part of a full
house; the show itself went over like gangbusters. The audience shrieked at appropriate times and applauded as the movie’s
closing credits were lighting up the screen.
Not only was I knocked out by the presentation, I came back to Richmond
convinced “Jaws” would be a gold mine. It was the slickest monster
movie I’d even seen. The next day, still caught up in that mania, I tried to talk my bosses into
borrowing a lot of money to support a bid on “Jaws” that would include a substantial cash advance.
That summer I wanted to bet everything we could borrow to out-bid Neighborhood Theatres for the Richmond
market. I even convinced a neighborhood branch bank manager to try to help us borrow the dough.
Well, we didn’t get the money, but it was privately satisfying seeing
“Jaws” open on June 20, 1975, and go on to set new records for its box
office grosses. Its
unprecedented success put its director, Steven Spielberg, on the map.
After “Jaws” Hollywood hustlers aplenty rushed out to try to duplicate the
formula its producers and distributors had used. Thus, in 1975, the
age of summer blockbusters with massive ad campaigns
and widespread releases began.
Another thing “Jaws” did was make young men who were sometimes too self-absorbed, like me, feel
intimidated by Spielberg’s outrageous success at such a tender age. I
can still remember reading that he was younger than me.
Although I had a great job for a 27-year-old movie-lover who liked to work without a lot of supervision, it
offered no direct connection to filmmaking. At this time I
had one nine-minute film and one 30-second television commercial, both
shot in 16mm, to my credit. 1975’s Boy Wonder, Steven Spielberg, made
me feel like I was on the wrong track. That might have been the first time I gave much thought to how and when to leave the Biograph.
Fast-forward 34 years to when I watched a BBC-produced documentary,
“Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll
Generation Saved Hollywood,” about filmmaking in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Directors and other players from that time were
interviewed. Made in 2003, it was thoroughly
entertaining. I saw it on Turner Movie Classics in 2009.
Among those who made comments in the documentary were Tony Bill, Karen
Black, Peter Bogdanovich, Roger Corman, Richard Dreyfuss, Peter Fonda,
Dennis Hopper, László Kovács, Kris Kristofferson, Arthur Penn and
Cybill Shepherd.
Dreyfuss, who was one of the stars of "Jaws," spoke of attending one of
those pre-release screenings. He said he got caught up in the experience of
seeing it for the first time in a crowded theater; he totally forgot himself as the
actor on the screen.
Actress Margot Kidder (best known for her Lois Lane portrayals in the
Superman series of movies) appeared on camera several times. She made a
joke out of how Spielberg had begun to fib about his age, once he
became famous. She had known him before his sudden notoriety, so she
noticed it when he went from being older than her to being younger.
Kidder claimed Spielberg was fudging his birth date by a couple of
years.
Well, flashing back on my absurd jealousy to do with Spielberg’s rise to
stardom, when he was supposedly younger than me, I had to laugh out
loud. Then I looked up Spielberg’s age; he’s older than both Margot and me.
So, I searched for more on the age-change and found some old articles about “Jaws” and
Spielberg. Yes, it looks like Kidder was right. Back in the ‘70s,
perhaps to play up the Boy Wonder aspect of the story, Spielberg’s birth
date was being massaged. Somewhere along the line, since then, it
looks like it got straightened out.
Laughing at one’s own foolishness is usually a healthy exercise. Yes,
and when the laugh had been waiting over three decades to be realized, it was all
the sweeter.
After all, nothing has ever been more integral to Hollywood’s special
way of doing business -- before or after “Jaws” -- than making up fibs,
especially about one’s age.
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