David O. Selznick

David O. Selznick (1940) 
with his Oscar and his
Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien
Leight, who got one of
her own the same year)

As painters, we often come to think of our craft as the most important of the arts, despite respectable competition from music, drama, literature, architecture, sculpture, and (most recently) motion pictures. It is this latter, relatively new, twentieth century art form that I want to talk about at the moment. Without a doubt, the cinema is the most viable, perhaps one would have to say even the "best" art medium in the world today because it takes the best that all the other arts have to offer (including painting) and melds them into one hybrid capable of providing the viewer a truly "moving" experience. Oh, I know, not everything that comes out of Hollywood is high art, but the same could be said of every other art capital in the world. What makes motion pictures so unique is that so much of it is so good.  I know a lot about painting having done my fair share, but if you were to ask me to name the one work of art in the whole of art history which I know the most about, it would not be a painting.  It would be a movie, specifically, the David O. Selznick, 1939 production of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind.

GWTW theatrical poster

Selznick's A Tale of Two Cities, 1935

As an art instructor, for the better part of my career I taught a segment in each course titled "Movies as an Art form." This was one of the movies I taught. Movies, by their very nature are "art by committee," and, unlike most creative enterprises based upon such a premise, it actually works most of the time.  However, a few film artists such as Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen, and Orson Wells built such personal reputations as artists they managed to break free from the "committee" and create on film much as a painter might work on canvas. One of these towering giants was David O. Selznick.  Sidney Howard for his screenplay and Victor Fleming as director, both won Academy Awards for their work on GWTW, and of course, Selznick could hardly have played Scarlett O'Hara himself, but more than any other producer at that time, he all too often wrote, directed, and edited this masterpiece himself despite the claims of the opening credits. He was a perfectionist, a disorganized, right-brained dynamo, brought up in the business by his father, living on Benzedrine, who thought no one could do their job better than he could. More often than not he was wrong, but often enough, he was right, and aside from Scarlett herself (Vivien Leigh), no one left a more indelible mark on the picture.

David Copperfield, 1935

Rebecca, 1940

David O. Selznick was born in 1902. He was working in the business under his father by the time he was fifteen, and production manager at RKO Pictures while still in his twenties. He married Irene Mayer, the daughter of MGM mogul, Louis B. Mayer, and was off and running with his own studio by the time he was 35. GWTW was not his first great film. He also made such classics as Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, What Price Hollywood?, Intermezzo and Rebecca (for which he won a second Academy Award). Unfortunately, GWTW was his last great film. His problem was, what do you do for an encore? He worried that everything he did thereafter would be compared to GWTW and found inferior. He worried that when he died, it would be the first and last paragraph of his obituary. He was right on both counts. By 1949 he had lost his studio due to a dismal string of critical disasters, sold his rights to GWTW to MGM to pay off his enormous debts, and when he died in 1965, no one remembered either his other successes or his numerous failures. Selznick was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg award for outstanding contributions to the film industry on the same night GWTW walked off with ten Oscars. His only misfortune seems to have been that he was not thirty years older at the time and therefore could have rested on his laurels.

What Price Hollywood? 1932

Intermezzo, 1939

Alfred Hitchcock

Legendary storyteller, legendary films.



I've long insisted that modern-day motion pictures are the most viable art form known to man (stretching the definition now to include video). In effect, this one medium encompasses virtually every other art form into one, utilizing the best each has to offer into a single, highly effective, medium of expression. Likewise I've delved into the art and artists marking the best of the best in this endeavor, from my favorite, Steven Spielberg, to perhaps my least favorite, Francis Ford Coppola. Recently in reviewing the AMC (American Movie Channel) listing of the Greatest Directors of All Time, I came face to face with a glaring omission in my coverage. There, at number one, top of the list, was a man, whom I'd mentioned often, but never really written about--Sir Alfred Hitchcock.

 

 Hitchcock's Rebecca,
his one and only Oscar.

I could list a number of reasons for this oversight, perhaps principle among them being that I've never been a great fan of suspenseful drama. But that's really no excuse and doesn't in any way diminish the influence this groundbreaking producer/director has had on the art of film making. It's a tossup as to which should be the most legendary, the man or his films. As a Hollywood legend he ranks with D.W. Griffith, Orson Wells, David O. Selznick, Stanley Kubrick, and a few others. Like the others, Hitchcock rose to the top of his profession allowing him a great deal of control (if not total control) of his films. Like the others, he still often battled the "damned studio" bosses, not to mention, in Hitchcock's case, his frequent censorship run-ins Joseph Breen of the Motion Picture Production Code office. Yet even the preeminent studio boss and "control freak" David O. Selznick "let Hitchcock be Hitchcock." As a result of this indulgence, in 1940, Selznick Studios received a second "Best Picture" award (marking two years in a row, following GWTW) for Rebecca. Inasmuch as he already had on, Selznick graciously allowed Hitchcock to keep the statuette. Ironically, Hitchcock was competing against himself, his film, Foreign Correspondent was also nominated for "Best Picture" the same year. In what may be the all-time worst sin in AMPAS history, Hitchcock never did win an Oscar as "Best Director."


Hitchcock's first hit, 1927.

Hollywood legends have often been bigger than life, though in Hitchcock's case that might be difficult. Whether discussing his persistent cameo appearances in his films, his ending "twists," his love for shooting action sequences on location at famous landmarks, or his penchant for extremely thorough preproduction planning, Hitchcock was one of a kind. Born in 1899 in a northeast suburb of London, the man literally started at the very bottom of the 1920s British film industry. Trained as a graphic artist, he started by designing silent film title cards, moving up from there to film posters, then to writing suspenseful short stories in the company newsletter, Jesse Lasky's Famous Players Productions (later to become Paramount). Later he worked as a set designer and art director. His career as a director didn't exactly get off to a roaring start. His first two film (now lost) were never completed due to financial difficulties. His third film (Pleasure Garden, 1925) while eventually completed, was a box office dud. Hitchcock's first commercial success came in 1927, with Lodger: a Story of the London Fog (above left), said to be the first truly "Hitchcockian" film with several elements later to become his film trademarks.



Over fifty films, some familiar, some...not so much.

David O. Selznick brought Hitchcock to Hollywood in 1939, turning him loose on Rebecca--one great talent recognizing another. Although Selznick had signed Hitchcock for seven films, he was really more talent than the perennial spendthrift, Selznick, could afford. After Rebecca, they made only one other film together, Spellbound, in 1945. Mostly Selznick "farmed out" Hitchcock to other studios where he directed such classics as Mr. & Mrs. Smith (RKO), Shadow of a Doubt (Universal), Lifeboat (Fox), and Notorious (RKO-Vanguard). However, it was during the 1950s when Hitchcock really came into his own, working intermittently as a free agent for Warner Brothers, Paramount, MGM, and Universal on such instantly recognizable suspense classics as Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Man Who Knew Too Much (a remake of his 1934 British film), Vertigo, North by Northwest (below), and finally, in 1960, his biggest hit of all (some would say his best film), Psycho.

Alfred Hitchcock was never shy about putting his own persona into his work, whether in
his many cameo appearances or in promoting his pictures.

The scream heard round the world.

If he wasn't already, Psycho made Hitchcock a millionaire--some fifteen times over, in fact--out of a total box office take of $50-million. The budget was a measly $800,000, the shooting was in black and white on a rented, unused set with a television crew. Chocolate syrup stood in for blood in the stabbing scene. The film made Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, and John Gavin household names. It also instilled a deathly fear among women of taking showers in motels. Though Hitchcock lived and evolved as a director for another twenty years, making five more outstanding films showcasing his mature style of suspenseful drama, most people are most familiar with the Alfred Hitchcock of 1950s television. Along with Walt Disney, Hitchcock was one of the few 50s film makers to recognize television as a new medium to be embraced rather than a reckless upstart to be feared. Beginning in 1955, Alfred Hitchcock Presents aired on CBS every Sunday night (later on NBC, then back to CBS, and finally back to NBC again) for a total of 361 scary episodes. Though he was executive producer of the series, and introduced each episode with his trademark "Good Evening" over the iconic strains of Funeral March of a Marionette, Hitchcock never directed a single episode.

Hitchcock's dry, macabre sense of humor was always in the forefront.
The video above is long, but fun, perhaps the best part of each night's episode.

Seldom are great directors beloved by those who work for them. Part of that can be accounted for by their perfectionist tendencies. Such masters of their craft "don't suffer fools lightly." In most cases, such film making geniuses are, at best, respected. At worst, they're hated. Tippi Hedren (star of Hitchcock's The Birds) accused Hitchcock of misogyny and of ruining her career when she resisted his sexual advances. Other actors and actresses who have worked with him defend Hitchcock, reasoning that he considered actors as "animated props." As a rising young director in England, Hitchcock is said to have referred to actors as "cattle." Years later, in an interview, when questioned about his bovine reference, Hitchcock claimed to have been misquoted. He said instead, "...actors should be treated like cattle."

Another Alfred Hitchcock cameo appearance, Lifeboat, 1944

 

Margaret Mitchell

Margaret (Peggy) Mitchell and Vivien Leigh at roughly the same age.



The Crescent Street entrance to the Mitchell House
Museum. The porch is somewhat problematical
in design. This was once the rear of the house.

Even though I do a good bit of writing these days, unlike painting and the other fine arts, I don't consider myself to be any kind of expert on the literary arts. Thus I seldom delve into the lives, times, and work of writers. However, in the case of Margaret Mitchell, author of the immortal classic, Gone with the Wind, I'll make an exception. I'm so familiar with her life, her one literary accomplishment, the story, its background, the movie--virtually every element--that, having visited her home at 990 Peachtree Street in Atlanta (best accessed from the rear on Crescent Street), I could hardly wait to write about the experience. On our recent trip through Atlanta, the Mitchell House, where about ninety-percent of her novel was first written, was our first stop. We spent well over an hour there and, "quite frankly, my dear..."I was very pleased with what they'd done with the place. It was in the ground floor rear apartment that Margaret Mitchell became Pansy O'Hara (Scarlett's original moniker). Notice the similarities (above). David O. Selznick seems to have had Peggy Mitchell in mind when he cast Vivien Leigh as his leading lady.

The living room where the first draft of Gone with the Wind was written using
the small portable typewriter on the left.

Peggy Mitchell Marsh following the
publication of GWTW in 1936.

It's something of a miracle that Mitchell's one-time home (for seven years) still exists. First built in 1899, the original family lived in the three-story brick Tudor structure only eight years before moving on to the Atlanta suburb of Druid Hills. The neighborhood changed rapidly after the turn of the century from residential to commercial. The spacious, upper middle-class home was first moved to the back of its original lot, then in 1919, divided into ten apartments. Three brick stores (now long gone) were built on the house's original site. In 1925, Margaret Mitchell and her second husband, John Marsh, moved into the tiny Apartment Number One where they held their wedding reception, hosting some sixty guest. It must have been a rather "intimate" affair. The place has a small front porch, a modest living room, a bedroom (with a table set for two), bathroom, and a tiny kitchen. The ice box was on the back porch. The bed must have made an amusing centerpiece for the celebration.

The Peachtree Street front as seen today--probably more Neo-Classical
than when John and Peggy Marsh lived there.

The rear of the Margaret Mitchell house as
seen around 1977 before restoration.

While they lived at the Crescent Apartments, the Marshes referred to the place as "the dump." They moved on to a larger apartment a few blocks away in 1932. During the Depression years that followed, the place became even more of a dump. Though it continued to attract tenants until after WW II, the house became little more than a tenement slum, seldom more than a few months away from a date with a wrecking ball as the property changed hands numerous times, various owners went bankrupt, and the land upon which it sat grew in value almost daily. A fire in the 1980s further damaged the building which by then was starting to be seen as an historic structure. Renovation began in 1994. A short time later an arsonist struck, destroying much of the upper levels of the building but doing only minor damage to the Mitchell/Marsh apartment. Still, the house was just days short of demolition.

The Mitchell House (Crescent Apartments) after the devastating 1994 fire.

The cast: Scarlett, Rhett, Ashley, and Melanie,
portraits from the Atlanta premier.

Shortly after the second fire, restoration once more began and once more, in 1996, the structure was struck by fire just days before it was scheduled to open to the public. Arson was once more the cause. Apparently, someone didn't want to see the valuable property wasted on a minor tourist attraction. Again, Apartment No. 1 received only minor damage. The house as seen today opened to the public in 1997 and has since been free of fires. In addition to the Mitchell apartment, the rest of the house is a small museum and gift shop (admission is $12.00). Across an open courtyard is another small museum with artifacts and displays from the making of the movie, including a reconstruction of the front door of Tara. The massive portrait of Scarlett O'Hara from the movie (below, right) stares down from one wall with cool disdain.

Selznick International's conceptual drawing of Tara. Margaret Mitchell was upset
when she saw that, against her wishes, square columns had been added to the O'Hara home.

Scarlett O'Hara, 1939,
Helen Carlton

Gone with the Wind made Margaret Mitchell famous, but in large part, Hollywood mogul David O. Selznick made Gone with the Wind famous. Although much of the museum on the upper floors of the house in which Peggy and John Marsh lived is devoted to the book and its author, there is generous coverage devoted to the impact the film and its Atlanta premier in December, 1939 had upon Margaret Mitchell and the rest of Atlanta. Newsreel footage of the event runs continuously. There's even a painted image of Rhett and Scarlett in front of Tara (bottom) allowing visitors to poke their faces through two holes and audition for the roles in the highly unlikely event there's a remake of the epic film.

Margaret Mitchell Marsh

A William Cameron Menzies
storyboard painting suggesting
the battle scarred devastation at Tara. 

I think Rhett Butler would have looked good with a full beard and bald head.

 

The Kiss

The Kiss, 1907, Gustav Klimt, the $135-million kiss.

The Kiss, 1908, Constantin Brancusi

When art people think of kissing, the probably don't immediately bring to mind Gustav Klimt or Auguste Rodin, but then again, the really arty among us maybe do eventually. It would be a toss-up as to which work of art comes to mind first, Rodin's erotic marble sculpture (below) or Klimt's gold leaf lovers (above), which legend contends he and his companion at the time, Emilie Flöge, modeled for. It that was the case, there must have been some photography involved or some rather unromantic solitary posing. Rodin certainly did not pose for his Kiss and it's uncertain whether he even used a model for the female figure. There's no record of it, in any case. By the way, Rodin carved two copies of the original and there exists some 319 bronze castings of the duo. Another carved version of The Kiss (left) by Constantin Brancusi (obviously a cubist) was created in 1908, some twenty years after Rodin's piece. It would appear marble kisses had come a long with in that interval.

The Kiss, 1889, Auguste Rodin. The top two are the most commonly photographed angles.

Of course, Rodin and Klimt were not the first nor last to depict the meeting of lips as a celebration of love. The Medieval painter, Giotto may have been one of the first and, shockingly, his kiss did not involve a man and a women. His kiss depicts, not love, but betrayal. He painted it around 1305 with the title, The Kiss of Judas (below) for the Scrovegni Chapel, in Padua, Italy. It's considered one of his greatest masterpieces.

The Kiss of Judas, 1304-06, Giotto

The Kiss, 1897-98,
Edvard Munch

Just about every famous painter since Giotto has painted his or her own version of The Kiss. Picasso painted at least two (below), one from the mid-1920s, the other, lesser known (and not without good reason), is undated. About the same time, Edvard Munch, while not "screaming" was apparently "kissing" as see in his woodcut print from around 1897-98 (right). Toulouse-Lautrec weighed in with his version of The Kiss (below, left) in 1893.

The Kiss, 1893, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Pablo Picasso finds The Kiss to be an abstract concept.

In the early 1940s, it's likely the most popular "kiss" was not painted on canvas but on the motion picture screen featuring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh. It was "painted" by David O. Selznick and Victor Fleming, titled not "The Kiss" but Gone With The Wind (below) accompanied by Rhett Butler's words: "No, I don't think I will kiss you, though you need kissing, and often; and by someone who knows how." Though the scene below is the most iconic, as the dialogue suggests, the kiss itself didn't actually occur until more than an hour later in the film, after Rhett Butler had proposed marriage.

The 1939 kiss, painted by David O. Selznick and Victor Fleming in Gone With The Wind.

The Kiss, 1945, Alfred Eisenstaedt

Also during the 1940s, WW II entailed a great deal of kissing as servicemen left for Europe or the Pacific. However, the most famous kiss from the war came on VJ Day, August 14, 1945, set in New York's Times Square, when photographer Alfred Eisen-staedt captured an amorous sailor and a bystanding nurse in a lip-locked clinch to rival forever anything carved by Rodin or painted by Klimt. Notice the, no doubt, envious sailor and the elderly ladies in the background enjoying the historic moment. A little more than a decade later, a kiss took on a comic flavor as seen in Pop artist, Roy Lichtenstein's The Kiss (below) from 1962.

The Kiss, 1962, Roy Lichtenstein

For those wondering why I'm such an expert on kisses, I've painted a few during my own career too. My favorite was not titled "The Kiss" but could have been. I called it A Man for All Seasons (below), painted, as near as I can recall, about 1980. It depicts in a montage a single teenaged boy kissing each of his girlfriends over the course of a year. Perhaps, like Rodin, I should have made a number of copies. It sold within just a few weeks.

Copyright, Jim Lane

A Man for All Seasons, ca. 1980, Jim Lane

 

Typecasting

It is not unheard of in show business that an early, outstanding performance is so well known and beloved that everything else the individual might attempt, often for the rest of their life, is judged against their early success and found wanting.  Producer, David O. Selznick, endured this after Gone With the Wind.  Orson Wells so became Citizen Kane it was hard for him to ever become any other character.  Leonard Nimoy had the same problem having played Mr. Spock.  It can also happen to painters.
 

What most people know about Grant Wood usually begins and ends with American Gothic.  A few might be able to tell you the painting depicts not a farmer and his wife but a farmer and his rapidly aging daughter, well on her way toward old-maidenhood, perhaps thanks to her father's ever-present pitch fork.  The president of the Grant Wood fan club could probably tell you the model for the female figure was none other than the artist's sister, Nan, while the farmer was in actuality, the artist's dentist, Dr. McKeeby.  And the mayor of Eldon, Iowa, could show you the tiny Gothic-Revival farm house still standing in his community.  He might also add that if you'd like to see the painting today, go to the Chicago Institute of Art.   
   
Beyond that, Grant Wood is kind of an enigma.  Born in 1892 in the state of Iowa, where he spent most of his life, Wood graduated from the Chicago Institute of Art then spent time studying in Europe where he was exposed to all the prevailing styles and, no doubt, studied those no longer prevailing as well.  Later, he would consider this time searching for a European art identity largely wasted.  It was back home in Cedar Rapids, teaching school, passing himself off as an interior decorator, and painting murals, that he discovered his true place as an artist.  By Iowa standards, he was an unabashed liberal, though his art critics considered him a right-wing conservative.  He was soft-spoken, yet a witty conversationalist.  However, only after the critical success of American Gothic in 1930, did this wit begin to appear in his work.       

Daughters of Revolution, 1932, Grant Wood

Wood's other paintings are not so well known.  Perhaps his other best known work depicts three prim, proper, geriatric ladies posed before a painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware.  It's titled, Daughters of Revolution.  Painted in 1932, Wood's dry wit is quite evident.  His penchant for idealized landscapes can be seen in Fall Plowing and his aerial view of The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.  He indulged in other folk tales such as Washington's cherry tree in Parson Weem's Fable.  His wit becomes pure humor in his 1933 painting, Adolescence, in which he sandwiches a nearly nude young rooster between two fat and sassy old hens, in an amusing parable about the shyness and awkwardness of growing up.  Perhaps his best work is a large triptych in which he portrays the memory of a noon meal for threshers.  The simple, farmhouse architecture is divided into the barnyard/front porch where the workers freshen up, the dining room where they are shown eating, and the kitchen were the women prepare the huge, hearty, noontime meal.  Perhaps Wood would not be such an unknown figure in American art had he survived into the more recent "media age" to join some of his contemporaries such as Thomas Hart Benton, Georgia O'Keefe, and Edward Hopper.  However, he died in 1942.  He was 49. 



Dinner for Threshers, 1934, Grant Wood





Steven Spielberg's Jaws

Remember, it's only a movie.

A poster designed to terrorize.

Anyone accustomed to reading my discourses on the filmmaker's art, knows that my favorite movie of all time is David O. Selznick's Gone with the Wind. Today, I'm going to put forth one of my least favorite movies of all time, Steven Spielberg's Jaws. It's not that I have anything against Spielberg. I've long been an admirer of his work. In fact I'd credit him as being the greatest movie director alive today. What I dislike intensely is what's come to be called the "thriller" movie genre. It's a personal thing--I hate being scared out of my wits. Despite all that, Jaws and GWTW have a lot in common. To begin, both were made from best-selling, blockbuster novels. Jaws was based upon a 1974 novel by Peter Benchley. Both movies were considered by most of Hollywood in their time as "unfilmable." Both films departed drastically from their literary parents, both went WAY over budget, and both took far longer to film than intended. Both films made box office stars of their casts (except for Gable, who was already a star at the time). Both films set box office records (adjusted for inflation and since eclipsed by newer fare). And finally, both films had a profound effect on the art of moviemaking, changing the way we make, watch, and think about movies today.

A bigger boat, indeed...Robert Shaw, as Quint, is eaten alive.

Benchley wrote three versions of the
screenplay. None were used.

"You're gonna need a bigger boat." It's a classic bit of dialog instantly identifying the movie from which it came. It was also an ad-lib, not in the original script. That puts it right up there with "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," (which was a rewrite by Selznick of Margaret Mitchell's "Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn."). Jaws actor, Robert Shaw (above) as Quint, would tend to agree regarding the boat. Quite apart from memorable dialogue, the making of both Jaws and GWTW had yet one more thing in common. The script was written and rewritten again and again as the filming of each progressed. As Richard Dreyfus (Matt Hooper) recalled, "We started the film without a script, without a cast and without a shark."

"Bruce," the star of the film, this version designed for shots in
which the shark moved before the camera from right to left.

A young and inexperienced
Steven Spielberg, 1975.
Notice the "clapper."

The casting of Jaws took far less time than did GWTW, but it was difficult for largely the same reason. Spielberg did not want a big star headlining the ensemble he was putting together. Many possible leading roles were turned down by actors who were "afraid to go into the water." In any case, the star of the picture would be the mechanical shark (they called it "Bruce" after Spielberg's lawyer). The problem was, that Bruce was a rather inept actor. Actually there were three different Bruces. The main one was a "sea-sled shark", a full-body prop with its belly missing, towed with a 300-foot line. The other two were "platform sharks", one that moved from left to right (with its hidden left side exposing an array of pneumatic hoses), and its opposite with the right flank uncovered. Built in California and trucked to Martha's Vineyard, where most of the film was shot, they seldom worked as intended. Often they didn't work at all. Tested in a Universal City swimming pool, they were no match for the Atlantic Ocean. The film's shooting schedule was originally 55 days. The temperamental Bruce, combined with adverse weather and salt water, stretched that to 159 days. The $4-million budget ballooned to $9-million. Spielberg was sure he'd never work in films again.

Robert Shaw (Quint), Roy Scheider (Brody), and Richard Dreyfuss (Hooper)

Amity Police Chief, Roy Scheider

As with any good ensemble cast, when one member has difficulties, the others rise to the task of filling in, making the troubled member look good. The three male leads, Roy Scheider (Police Chief, Martin Brody), Robert Shaw (boat owner, Quint), and Richard Dreyfuss (marine biologist, Matt Hooper) turned in what some consider the best performances of their careers. Lorraine Gary, as Ellen Brody (Matt's wife and Murray Hamilton as Amity Mayor, Larry Vaughn, rounded out the supporting roles. However it was Spielberg himself who rose to the occasion most effectively, by minimizing visual appearances by his cantankerous (some would say fake-looking) shark in favor of Hitchcock-like suspense (what you can't see is more frightening than that which is obvious). Only near the end does the full impact of the Great White's power and deadly presence take center stage.

Quint's boat, the Orca, set against the backdrop of the Martha's
Vineyard fishing village of Menemsha.

In large part, Martha's Vineyard, standing in for the fictitious beach town of Amity Island, as well as the local residence of Martha's vineyard occupied the minor roles. When the script called for the tourists to panic, they did so with superb hysterics. There was even a part for the book's author, Peter Benchley, playing a TV news reporter (bottom). When the move went on to gross some $470-million, they were justly proud of their roles. The movie was also nominated for Best Picture. It lost to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Spielberg was angered by the fact that he was not nominated for Best Director. However, Jaws did win three Academy Awards: Best Film Editing, Best Sound, and Best Original Dramatic Score for composer John Williams. Moreover, it was at the Oscar presentations that Jaws most noticeably parts company with GWTW. Selznick's efforts were nominated for thirteen Academy Awards. The movie won eight.

The police chief confronts the mayor--close the beach.

Jaws author, Peter Benchley in the movie role
of a TV news reporter.

Now this is more my kind of
"terror movie."