I’d have to say the first big movie blockbuster I remember is Jaws. Turns out, Jaws was the first blockbuster for just about everyone. Sure, we had the big Hollywood pictures of the decades before — Gone with the Wind, the Wizard of Oz, the Ten Commandments, Ben Hur — Hollywood spectacles in and of themselves.
But Jaws broke the mold somehow. Steven Spielberg went and made his movie. He crafted his movie. And he made it work. He made it compelling — not some kind of cheap slasher B film, and not some grand spectacle either. He crafted a story with depth and mystery — a story that draws you through from start to finish. Its characters were well-developed and well-acted. It is probably the second or third movie I remember ever seeing, and it’s still one of my favorites. Top 3 easy. I watched it yet again just a couple of weeks ago.
Jaws was written by Peter Benchley. He was a decent writer — put together a couple of good novels (Jaws included of course). I remembered reading another — The Deep — when it was published, and I liked it. It was one of those novels that a kid my age would remember. One of the kind of books that I might have stayed up all night finishing. I also saw the movie, starring Jacqueline Bisset and Nick Nolte (when he was still young and not all used up). And Robert Shaw. The Deep was nowhere near the work that Jaws was, but a good story nonetheless.
I don’t know what made me look for it again after all of these years, but I picked up an audio version of The Deep from the library and listened right through it in a day or two. Yeah. It was one of those books. And now I’ve picked up Jaws, which I also read when I was a kid, and it’s a good read too. Another one of those paperbacks you can plow through in a night. I think you need books like that too. I do a lot of heavy reading, all over the place. It’s a welcome break to just read something light and easy, straight through. Not a lot of thinking necessary. Just enough to take you somewhere else. And isn’t that what a good novel should do sometimes?
