Sideshow
By SHARON FINK
Published May 13, 2005
CUE THE MUSIC. AND YOU KNOW WHAT MUSIC WE MEAN: What a year it's turning into for celebrations in Massachusetts. First there was the Red Sox. Then the Patriots. And now it's a people-eating shark and the hunt to destroy it that had the country crazed in the summer of 1975.
From June 3 to 5, the island of Martha's Vineyard will hold "Jawsfest," marking the 30th anniversary of the release of Jaws.
Stores will hang "Amity Island" signs that were used during filming. Festivalgoers can visit the sites of key scenes. And "Bruce on the Loose," a replica of Jaws' mechanical great white shark (called Bruce by its handlers), will show up at events.
A charter boat operator has planned sunset cruises to filming sites; the June 4 trip is already booked, much to his surprise. "I had no idea that people were so out of their mind about this movie," John Potter told the Boston Globe, adding that he has gotten calls from Tampa, Seattle, Los Angeles and Dublin, Ireland.
Many events are free. Others require tickets; the cost is $75 per event, or attendees can buy a weekend pass for $495 (the $695 passes are sold out).
BRODY: "I USED TO HATE THE WATER." HOOPER: "I CAN'T IMAGINE WHY." About 25 members of the cast and crew are expected for Jawsfest panel discussions and autograph signings, including Peter Benchley, who wrote the book on which the movie was based (and who has a cameo in the movie and who, lore has it, was thrown off the set when he objected to the movie's climax, which didn't exactly match his book's).
Not expected are the biggest surviving stars, Roy Scheider (police Chief Brody), Richard Dreyfuss (shark hunter Hooper) and Steven Spielberg (then-struggling director). (Robert Shaw, who played the iconic fisherman Quint, died of a heart attack three years after the movie's release.)
But many longtime residents who were extras will be happy to share their stories. One, Chele Reekie, 45, says they were freezing during the Fourth of July beach scene, couldn't stop laughing whenever someone said a shark was in the water and couldn't imagine that Jaws would be successful.
SOMETHING TO WIGGLE THEIR NOSES AT: Over in Salem, Mass., some residents aren't in such good humor about a pop culture tie-in to their past.
They think it's really, really, really tacky that the town has approved a TV Land network plan to erect a 9-foot-tall bronze statue of Bewitched's chief witch, Samantha Stevens, riding a broom.
"It's like TV Land going to Auschwitz and proposing to erect a statue of Col. Klink," John Carr, a former member of the Salem Historic District Commission, told the Washington Post.
Some of them take Salem's infamous witch trials very seriously. Even 300-plus years later.
The statue is part of a TV Land master publicity plan to put oversized memorials to some of America's - and the network's - iconic characters in places they are identified with. There's a likeness of The Honeymooners' Ralph Kramden in Manhattan and Sheriff Andy Taylor and son Opie near North Carolina's statehouse.
Salem's mayor loves the Bewitched idea. Stanley Usovicz says he does take the town's past seriously, but he doesn't think it should stand in the way of advancing the tourism it created.
"Will (the statue) add to the experience of coming here?" he said. "Definitely."
Sharon Fink can be reached at 727 893-8525 or fink@sptimes.com