SPACE ODYSSEY: STANLEY KUBRICK, ARTHUR C. CLARKE

AND THE MAKING OF A MASTERPIECE    

by Michael Benson

Be forewarned: Michael Benson instantly accepts and utterly insists upon 2001 as

masterpiece (see: book title), and will brook no other option. So, if you’re one of those

who doesn’t like, doesn’t “get”, doesn’t appreciate the movie, you might feel lonely,

or at least out-numbered in these pages. The book’s position is simply that the movie

absolutely, undeniably, and obviously is a masterpiece. And, personally, I have no

problem with that.

This is not an academic treatise; this is a book designed for popular consumption, a book
designed to sell. But it is a smart book -- as befits its subjects -- and the author doesn’t
strive for homey, easy-listening tones.

His vocabulary is large, his approach is serious and adult. 2001 was not a popcorn movie

and this is not a popcorn book. And, no, before someone says so, it’s not an acid-trip book

either.

In a book such as this, a book which delves deeply and minutely into the details of not just

a movie but also into the lives of people -- brilliant, talented people at that -- all manner

of little specks of interest appear. A positive reference to Buddhism and Hinduism in a

chapter on Clarke, a visit to a tiki bar in a Kubrick passage….both give me something to

mention to my sons, one of whom studies both religion and all things south Asian, and the

other of whom is fascinated by “Tiki culture.” You just find the damndest stuff in a book

like this. And in one’s sons as well.

This is also not a jokey book by any means. It’s strictly business, though sometimes

presentedin near-poetic terms. But Benson does manage the occasional, subtle little joke,

even in footnotes (just relax, there are not many footnotes).

For the best evidence of my personal reaction to this book, you should ask those sons of

mine. I’m sure they’d report that they seldom, if ever, saw Dad as enthusiastic, as excited,

and as voluble about anything as he was whilst reading SPACE ODYSSEY. 

At any rate, their obvious amusement at my endless, probably incoherent, ramblings testified

strongly that this reaction was something out of the ordinary.

Benson’s work is overflowing with fascinating history and incidents and anecdotes. A few

tidbits-- The first meeting of Clarke and Kubrick occurred In New York City at Trader Vic’s

(on the very day that the World’s Fair opened in Flushing Meadow) and lasted for eight

hours.

Clarke wrote that when they met for the first time Kubrick “was in some danger of believing

in flying saucers; I felt I had just arrived in time to save him from this gruesome fate.”

The company which manufactured the film’s great spacesuits was located in Manchester,

England, England, across the Atlantic Sea, and was named Frankenstein and Sons.

Clarke says that Kubrick, under the influence of a book on cryogenics, was considering

bringing dead astronaut Frank Poole back to life, and that he, Clarke, had to fight “hard to

stop Stan from bringing Dr. Poole back from the dead.”  Especially interesting since

Clarke himself resurrected Poole in his novel 3001: THE FINAL ODYSSEY.

I knew of Kubrick’s fear of flying, but it was fun to learn that both Keir Dullea and Gary

Lockwood were airplane-phobic. As Benson puts it, “The most convincing film about space

exploration ever made would be captained and crewed by groundlings.”

Kubrick on acting: “Real is good. Interesting is better.” If this doesn’t seem to fit the

performances in 2001, it’s certainly descriptive of Peter Sellers and Shelley Winters in

LOLITA, and of Sellers (2/3rds of him anyway) and George C. Scott in

DR. STRANGELOVE, and of Vincent D’Onofrio in FULL METAL JACKET.

I guess you could include Jack Nicholson in THE SHINING in that roll call as well,

though that’s not a performance I’m very fond of.

How does OF MICE AND MEN figure into the book’s story? Well...read it yourself!

Ah hahahahahahah.

Stuntman Bill Weston, who did all the spacewalking and space-dying sequences, and who

almost died himself in the process, remained intensely proud of his part in the movie’s

making. Of working with Kubrick, he told the old Japanese Buddhist tale of the blue-tail

fly, which “can fly along at three miles per hour. [but] he hangs on the tail of a galloping

horse, which will do thirty miles per hour...however exasperating Stanley was, and certainly

how demanding he was, the man was a genius.”

In 1964, Kubrick watched “all” of Toho’s s-f films. The author suggests that MATANGO,

in particular, may have had its effect on 2001, though only in a technical sense.

The fellow who played the lead man-ape from the Dawn of Man sequence, and who

trained and “choreographed” the other ape-men, was a legally registered drug addict,

who lived on massive dosages of heroin and cocaine, occasionally supplemented by

methamphetamines. The man himself estimates that he was taking about thirty times

the amount of drugs used by your typical, average street junkie.

Lots of people know some of the strange story of the film’s music. No less than Alex North

was hired to compose a score. He wrote and recorded forty minutes worth of music for large

sections of the film. But Kubrick didn’t like it. One source said that the director commented

that the music was brilliant, “but it doesn’t suit my movie.” Another person remembered

Kubrick saying of the score, “it’s shit.”

Part of the problem -- maybe the whole problem -- was that Kubrick had fallen in love with

his “temp” score. But even those choices were very much up in the air. When the director

first added “The Blue Danube” to the spaceship scenes, people thought it was kind of cute

and funny. But when he continued to use it, day after day, the whispers started. He’s not

really going to use that, is he?...He can’t be serious about that waltz...

Kubrick himself was anxious about his own choices. When he thought of opening the movie

with the booming drama of “Also Sprach Zarathrustra”, he asked co-workers, “is this great?

Or is it just … too much?”

And his choice of the bizarre Ligeti music drove MGM crazy. They had invested so much

money and time into this movie and now the director was scoring it with weird-ass

experimental music.

Kubrick became so anxious about the music, still looking for a composer who could deliver

what he wanted, that he asked, in all seriousness, ”...should I contact The Beatles?”

Everyone knows, or thinks he knows, of Kubrick’s cruel, monomaniacal, Machiavellian

personality and methods, but this book makes clear that, while there are some bases for

such a reputation, there’s a vast unseen element as well: the dark side of this moon.

Fairly late in the whole process, Arthur C. Clarke received a letter from someone

sympathising with the author over Kubrick’s “insensitivity”. Clarke replied, “I do not

agree with you that Stanley is insensitive to the needs of others -- he is very sensitive,

but his artistic integrity won’t allow him to compromise.” If this seems a pat bit of

diplomacy, the evidence of the book certainly seems to confirm that statement.

Though there were undeniably rough, even sometimes unpleasant, sides to Kubrick’s

approach to people and to work, there are, even more, stunning examples of his brilliance

in working with people, in getting them to do things they didn’t know they could do, in

actually allowing them to “grow” well beyond what anyone might have thought possible.

I honestly think this book could be read only for its peek into the director’s management

style and be useful as a sort of an instructional book on how to lead people. So long, that is,

as one keeps in mind the composer who had a nervous breakdown, the crew chief who had

to quit on doctor’s orders due to the stress, and at least two other employees who essentially

left before they too collapsed.

Okay...sum it up, big guy... This is a freaking great book. Genuinely great.

I fervently recommend it to anyone.  I’d even recommend it to those sad souls who don’t

like 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, though I’d be tempted to make some cruel comment such

as “they probably can’t read anyway,” but I won’t stoop to that. Good lord, no, I’d never

say such a thing. Unh-uh.

To punctuate the utter sincerity of my recommendation, I’ll add this: After finishing the

book, I returned it to the library from which it was borrowed. But in the following days,

I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I did something I’d never done before. I bought a copy

for myself. Not a cheaper paperback, not a Used Book, no. I bought a full-priced, brand-new,

dust-jacketed hard-backed edition.

Will I read the book again, now that I own it? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. But if I

only wanted to re-read it, I could simply borrow it from the library again. This went well

beyond that. This purchase was my way of saying “thank you” to author Benson for such

a wonderful gift of reading. And it is also, somehow, some inexplicable how, my notice to

the world that this is a book well worth reading and well worth owning. Somehow, I don't

know, somehow it means that.

I most heartily recommend SPACE ODYSSEY: STANLEY KUBRICK, ARTHUR C. CLARKE

AND THE MAKING OF A MASTERPIECE to everyone. Really. I mean it. Really.

 

I’m sure that AI has been lurking behind many of my online going-ons over the last few years. I’m sure that I’ve been “helped” numerous times by AI without my realizing it. But I have never knowingly, willingly used AI. Not once. But today I witnessed some “help” offered me without my asking. Thankfully, I caught the help and prevented a lie being told on my behalf.

I have an ongoing email correspondence with a childhood friend. We used to watch the monster movies together and he frequently writes me with a memory or asks me if I remember something. I always reply but sometimes it takes a few days. Maybe I’m just too slow to satisfy AI.

I opened up his email and found, at the top, that AI had helpfully written a reply for me. Short and blunt. The salutation read, “Dear Steven”. And was signed off simply “Richard.”  So AI got our legal names right.

But we have NEVER referred to each other by those names. Sometimes we say “Steve” and “Rick”, but not usually even that. We have silly old childhood nicknames which we use 90% of the time. So, right off, the AI wants to formalize our 60 year friendship. Not good.

Then, in the body of the email, brief as it was, AI informs “Steven” that the experience he remembered was true of me as well. “Yes,” AI, says, “That’s what happened.”

But it didn’t. Not only was the AI trying to depersonalize and formalize our childhood friendship, it was actually lying to him. 

The discussion concerned our “duck and cover” experiences in school. Steve remembered having instruction of that, and asked if I had. So AI decided, “Sure, ole Richard had that experience” and told Steve that. Or would have, had I not seen the not-written-by-me note that AI wanted me to send.

Now, this is a minor thing from 60+ years ago, obviously. But it is, nevertheless, a lie. If AI can lie about such a teeny detail, what else can it lie about? Answer: any-damn-thing.

Of course this AI note was offered as a help. Many people, too many, would glance at it, think “Good, I don’t have to write anything.” Then they would press “Send” and lie to an old friend.

I’m glad I took the three seconds required to read the AI letter and notice how wrong and how awful it was.

In the grand scheme of things, in the great contentious AI discussion, this is the tiniest pebble, I know. But it’s my first personal experience with this dastardly process, and I am not happy.

Later addition:

Google's AI keeps trying.  Today I was responding to another email from old friend Steve. His message covered two items, a question about SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, and asking whether I'd ever watched RED DWARF.

AI's "suggested response" was essentially, "You're right about SON OF FRANKENSTEIN. I loved RED DWARF, which episode are you watching?"

The truth is -- as I personally, being a human, answered, "No, you're wrong about SON OF FRANKENSTEIN and I've never seen RED DWARF.  

Oooooh, AI was so (not) close.

I love Arby's. Arby's roast beef. I love it! 

I do not proclaim this ironically, nor jokingly. Not being sarcastic or cynical. Not looking for laughs or approval. Not fearing disdain or disagreement. Simple truth: I love Arby's.

My introduction to Arby's was in Denver, 1977. I was wandering the streets because, this being before home computers and cell phones, it was sometimes necessary for even the laziest of us to get out and perambulate.

While perambulating, I spotted Arby's. I’d never heard of it before, but it was lunch time. I bought an Arby's roast beef sandwich, fries, and a Coke. I loved the sandwich SO much that I bought a second sandwich and stuffed it into my gaping maw.

This was a momentous discovery, and that night at the theater (performing HARVEY) I spread the gospel of Arby's. I could not praise it enough. 

Next evening I arrived for the performance and was immediately confronted by Frank, our Elwood P. Dowd. He was more than unhappy. Frank was frankly furious. He explained to me in coarse and angry terms that he and his wife, on my recommendation, had ventured to Arby's that day. He said, "how could you direct anybody there? How could you suggest that anybody eat that garbage? It was disgusting!”

I took it from his tone that he did not like the Arby's roast beef sandwich. This was hard for me to understand but he was genuinely and loudly serious about it. I sort of apologized and we never mentioned it again.

Soon, there was an Arby's in Clarksville, Indiana, on the road in front of the Greentree Mall. As everyone knows, it was a legal requirement back then that anyone living within a 10-mile radius must visit the Greentree Mall at least once weekly. It was wonderful to have Arby's so handy, but … immediately across the street from Arby’s was Wendy's. If there was anything that I loved in this world as much as Arby's, it would be Wendy's.

You see my existential crisis. Approaching, I could see on my right, Arby's, on my left, Wendy's. I was so torn between these twin poles of perfection that I would usually pull into the Arby’s lot and have a think. Too often I opted for Arby's simply because, well, I was already in their parking lot. But sometimes I thought “NO! This is a Wendy's day!” 

One legendary afternoon I did both. Instead of my usual two Arby's roast beef sandwiches or two Wendy's hamburgers. I bought one Arby’s sandwich, crossed the street and bought one Wendy’s hamburger. Scoff if you will, I thought it a Solomonic solution.

My favorite Arby’s story has nothing to do with me, but it was in the newspaper so it must be true. In those days some people still valued the truth.

When the Arby's franchises first opened, they served genuine roast beef. But soon they realized that they could save money and simplify things by offering "pressed, formed beef". That’s the Arby's Roast Beef I love.

When the corporation switched from beef to pressed, formed beef, one franchise holder was unhappy. He felt it was cheating to advertise roast beef and serve pressed, formed beef. This singular man owned a franchise in Louisville, home territory. He felt so strongly about it that he-- on his own dime --continued to serve genuine roast beef though it cost more. His was the last Arby’s anywhere to hold out. But not for long, not because of the difficulty or the expense, but because he was getting complaints from his customers. Something was wrong with the meat because it didn't taste “like Arby's.”

You see the irony. Because he was serving genuine roast beef as the sign promised, because he went to the expense and effort to provide what he felt was proper service for his customers, his customers complained. He was forced to accept pressed, formed beef.

I think perhaps this sad tale of American consumers rebelling against the genuine in favor of the artificial is a fair metaphor for the difference between America in 1977 and what-calls-itself-America today.

Nevertheless, pressed, formed beef…I love that stuff.

Books Read in 2025

In 2025 I read 90 books. This was a small step up from 2024 when I read 84 books, but still a far cry from ‘22 and‘23 when I read 110 and 121 books respectively. 

Of these 90 books, 13 were re-reads, 24 were nonfiction, 21 were mystery/ suspense, six were westerns, six were biographies. A couple of fantasies, couple horror, couple science fiction and one play. 

The best books I read last year were “An Oresteia” by Anne Carson, which is her new translation/ adaptation of three great Greek tragedies, one each by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The co-best book of the year was “Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant” by Ann Tyler. This may show that I am moving in the right direction, because a couple of years ago I worried that I was not reading enough female-written fiction. This year, however, my two top books were both written by women and , oddly, both written by women named Anne. So good for Anne. 

Runners-up to the best books of the year were “The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway”, “James” by Percival Everett, and “The Onion Book of Known Knowledge”. Lot of laughs in that thing. 

Then there’s “Manalive” by GK Chesterton. The first 10 or 15 pages were as brilliant and wise and funny as anything I'd ever read. I was thinking, “Wow! I have to read everything Chesterton ever wrote because this is incredible!” But then it sort of fell off the table, very much as if Chesterton not only ran out of creativity, he simply ran out of energy. The rest of the book is not terrible. It has quite a few interesting things to it, but it's nowhere near the brilliance of that beginning. 

I think the six westerns I read this year equals the total of westerns that I had read in my entire life before. It was a wholly intentional choice to read more westerns, because I realized that of the five or six I had ever read, every one of them was positively brilliant. Of course, I didn’t expect all westerns to be brilliant, but felt that, based on my experience, the odds were in my favor. Before this year I had read “Shane”, “Lonesome Dove”, “True Grit”, and a couple of others whose titles elude me. 

Five of the six westerns I read this year (all written by the late Robert B. Parker) were very quick, entertaining reads, but they were not literary genius in the way that “Lonesome Dove” and “True Grit” were. The other western, by noted cowboy author Louis L'Amour, was hugely disappointing and I don't think I'll be reading any more of his books. 

So my goal now is to get back to the 100 mark in books read. Unfortunately, January has proven very slow for various reasons, and if I want to read 100 books this year, I'm going to have to shift into High because at the moment, I'm way behind schedule.

 NAME THAT MOVIE #4

"Did you hear me? I said name that movie!"

Animal control is a problem, and the weather is a bitch, but, after a nap, everything looks different. A woman has been killed, though, and the corpse robbed, so it's time to hit the road. An agri-worker is encountered along the way, a wild animal is subdued, and a moribund lumberman becomes friendlier after some refreshing liquid. A frightening and mysterious person sets a nearly impossible task, a woman meets a watery death, and a youngster goes home, where everyone seems relieved.  But the place looks so...drab.

Today I watched the movie LIZZIE. It's from 1957 and it's THE THREE FACES OF EVE before THE THREE FACES OF EVE and maybe even better.

Johnny Mathis has a small role in the movie. He plays “the piano singer”, which is pretty much just himself. He sings a couple of songs, including one of his big hits, “It’s Not for Me to Say”, but has no spoken lines. He sings beautifully and looks very young and handsome.

I had the thought, watching and listening to him, of what his effect might have been in the late '50s and early '60s. I imagine little teenage girls, prim, proper, conservative, god-fearing All-American little girls, and I'm wondering --actually, I'm assuming -- that some of those little girls, maybe many, many of them, had some seriously warm and “improper” thoughts about Johnny Mathis. In the '50s these weren’t just improper, they were dangerous. But I’ll betcha there was lots of sighing and mooning over this dark dreamboat. 

But I wonder if they were thoughts that any self-respecting 1957 girl would have shared with even a best friend? I wonder.

Maybe I'm evil personified but I find myself quite amused by this. I get the same giggly feeling from considering these bent taboos that I get whenever one of those holier-than-thou religious leaders is caught up in some indecent or even pervy scandal. Call me names, but I just revel in the hypocrisy.

I hope those teenage girls became moms and grandmas and never, never got over gorgeous, silky-voiced Johnny Mathis.

THIEVING FROM THE KING

Sometime during the years from 1978 to 1981 I had a promising idea for a short story. At that same time, Twilight Zone Magazine announced a short story contest. This timing seemed ideal.

I called the story- I think- “A Friend in Need ". In my head, as I imagined the story unfolding, I truly thought this might turn out to be the absolute scariest story anyone had ever written. Forget Poe and Lovecraft and Stoker, the stuff playing out in my mind was terrifying. So I plopped down in front of my ancient typewriter and went to work.

I fiddled with it for several days, maybe as long as two weeks, and at the end of that journey I had 32 double-spaced pages of spooky short story.

I was pretty happy with the finished product, thinking I had a good readable story .

One aspect I wasn't sure of, though -- was it scary? Forget “scariest thing ever”, was it scary at all? And those scary visions in my brain? Had they translated to the page, or were they gone? Still hopeful, but definitely unsure, I decided I needed an outside opinion. That was a nervous-making prospect. Critics, after all, can be cruel.

But a second opinion was required and I had only one candidate. I sent a copy of the story to my brother Barry. I thought he'd give me an honest but not nasty opinion. More importantly, he was the smartest person I knew, so I figured that he’d provide a worthwhile opinion.

Barry read the story and called me with his report. I remember his words almost exactly. He said,"If you intended to write a sweet story about childhood and friendship, you did a great job. But if you intended to write something scary, you failed miserably.” The criticism didn’t hurt. It was pretty much what I’d expected and I was pleased that Barry, at least, liked the story for its sweeter virtues.

I mailed the story into the magazine contest, heard nothing, and that was that. Until…

A few days ago I was re-reading Stephen King's PET SEMATARY when it occurred to me for the first time that King's novel shared a significant element with my almost forgotten story. This worried me. Had I unknowingly stolen a plot element from the King of Horror?

I had read PET SEMATARY as soon as it was published and --when was that? Maybe late '70s or early '80s? I had written the story in that same time frame, with 1981 as the latest possible date.

Was it possible that I had read King's then-new novel and unintentionally filched from it? The thought made me a little ill. I mean, it certainly didn't matter. King's book is a modern horror classic, while my story was a never-read, long-missing nothing. Still, I really didn't want to discover that I was, however unknowingly, a plagiarist. Thus, it was that I, with great trepidation, checked the publication date of PET SEMATARY which turned out to be……… 1982! Whew!- I was not a thief.

I think that a copy of “A Friend in Need" still exists somewhere around here. Maybe I'll dig it out. Or maybe I won't. I mean- who wants to learn that the sweet, unscary story he wrote in 1980 stinks to high heaven in 2025?

Fifty Years Ago Today

Fifty Years Ago Today was Monday, August 25, 1975…Bruce Springsteen's album Born to Run was released in the United States, and made Springsteen a rock superstar…In a luxury railroad car parked in the middle of the Victoria Falls Bridge, Ian Smith, Prime Minister of Rhodesia and leader of the white minority government of that African nation, met with Bishop Abel Muzorewa of the black African National Council, to negotiate a peaceful solution to a threatened war. The bridge linked white-ruled Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) and black-ruled Zambia (formerly Northern Rhodesia). The meeting was not successful…Get Down Tonight by KC and the Sunshine Band was the #1 song in the U.S. Check out the video from Dahn Kuushnah’s Rahk Consutt,

 …

KC & The Sunshine Band - Get Down Tonight (Live)

I was still 25, a dangerous condition with which I would suffer for another 5 months. Youth is great, you know, apart from the massive stupidity. 

I was barely an actor at all in 1975. It was my second year as a member of Actors Equity, and I was beginning to wonder if joining up had been a good idea. This year I was logging a solid ton of electrician work with my dad. Long hours, feeble pay, and Dad for a boss. Pretty ugly.

Since my last 50 Years ago date of July 26, I’d seen a handful of genre movies which I’m not revisiting and not reporting on. Titles include…DOC SAVAGE, THE MAN OF BRONZE, SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON, CAPTIVE WOMEN, VENUS AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES, and the highly marginal TV-movie CATHOLICS which was memorable for a stunning performance by Trevor Howard. Among those others…well….SEANCE OF A WET AFTERNOON was quite good. ‘Nuff said.

It was a hot one, hitting 94 fahrenheit. I don’t really remember that, but the newspaper reports it. There were so many hot, sweltering, miserable days in the unholy Ohio River Valley that I think I can be forgiven for forgetting one specific trip to Hell. 

So…JAWS…big movie, right? Great movie, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Big ol’ classic movie, no doubt about it.

JAWS opened in Louisville on June 20, 1975 just as it did all around the country. So, of course, as a big time movie fan and legendary Monster Kid, I was right there on that first day, wasn’t I? Wasn’t I just??!!  Well, no. I wasn’t. I didn’t see JAWS till this day, more than two months after it had opened. Very late to the game, eh? Why was this?

This was also playing locally when JAWS opened.

I think I explained this tardiness in my last FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY thingamuhbob-- I didn’t want to have to wait in those endless queues to get in, and I didn’t want to follow the trend. A rebel, that’s me.

But two months? Even knowing why I’d delayed, that surprises me. I must have been playing really tough on not-following-the-trend. Thankfully, I eventually caved. 

The movie was still playing at the same theater in which it had opened. And that night the place was almost full. By getting there early, I was able to nab a favored seat, about 5th row, on the aisle, and let the place fill up around me.

My recollection is that the audience gasped and sighed and laughed and screamed in all the right places, but I don’t remember particular responses. I assume they freaked at the underwater corpse and at the first real sight of the shark --and probably I did too--but I have no specific memories of such moments. Too bad.

Local review below. This critic once reviewed a show I was in and gave me an “okay”. But it was obvious from her review that she had left after the first act and never even saw me onstage. So…keep that in mind when reading this review.

But I did love it. I did recognize that it wasn’t just a decent thriller; I knew it was something special. I’ll admit, however, that I didn’t recognize at the time just HOW special. 

And now, half a century on, JAWS seems like something I and everyone else in the world has always known. We were all born, it seems, with John Williams’s music in our baby brains.

I’ve watched it numerous times since then though, sadly, never again in a theater. But no matter how many viewings I’ve racked up, I’m always ready for another thrill ride. So…

How about a skinny-dip, Chrissy? You first.

-----------------------------------------------

And there’s the music. 

In 1975 I was unimpressed by Lorraine Gary. It’s an embarrassing admission, but my problem with her was almost entirely--no, it was entirely entirely--that she just wasn’t movie-star-beautiful. What a jerk I was. What I’ve learned since is that, in addition to being very real-world-pretty, she gives a truly fine performance. Sharing the screen with four top-notch actors, she holds her own with no visible effort.

Dreyfuss’s reaction to Chrissy’s mangled bits is perfection. He flinches and gasps for air and we are right there with him. We’re not seeing what he’s seeing, but, yeah, that’s how we would react. If we didn’t faint, that is.

It’s always struck me, from first viewing, that the remains of poor Chrissy, as described by Hooper, really wouldn’t fit in that little tray. It makes a shocking visual when this full-grown blonde is pulled from the fridge in a brownie tray. But, no. She wouldn’t have fit.

So we bid a fond farewell to Alex Kintner. Alex, we hardly knew ye.

They did a great job of casting local amateurs. They’re not great actors, by any means, but they feel right. And, especially, Spielberg manages to set them up to win. There’s a quirk here, a funny little line there, an offhand glance elsewhere. Spielberg also moves the camera on to them -- and OFF of them, at just the right moment.

I mentioned elsewhere around here a while back that Quentin Tarantino considers JAWS to be a “perfect movie.”  As do I. So I wrote about the little imperfections in perfect JAWS. 

The only glaring imperfection, I think, is Hooper’s late night excursion to check out Ben Gardner’s boat. It’s unacceptable. Hooper has already shown us that he’s the one person here who really knows sharks and that he’s the one sensible person. 

Then he goes night-diving in shark territory?  Nope. 

Yes, it sets up the jump scare beautifully, but ya gotta really turn your brain off to go along. It’s a horror movie cliche. It’s the ultimate, “Don’t go in the basement!!” moment. The scene is a shocker, but it almost forces the audience to check out for a moment.

I wish the mayor’s great anchor jacket fit him better. Looks like it’s two sizes too big. His later striped jacket fits just fine.  Murray Hamilton, by the by, is pretty great as the mayor you’d never vote for.

On this viewing, I appreciated the stuntmen for the first time. Not so much for the stunt work as for how well they match the actors. I’m sure a freeze frame or even slo-mo might reveal some fake Shemps, but just watching a beautiful Blu-ray straight through on a big screen tv, there was no flaw. I took to looking carefully whenever there was a moment which obviously called for stuntmen.  And the match was terrific. Surely that’s not Robert Shaw there, but it does look like him.

Credit here again--as if he needs more--to Spielberg, who positions the camera at a distance and angle to maintain his illusion.

I wonder, though, if Spielberg didn’t maybe over-stress Chekhov’s compressed air tanks. He needed to set up the possibility of an explosion, sure, but maybe, just maybe, there’s one too many early glimpses of the tanks. Maybe?

Finally, looking back 50 years--I remember reading some gossipy movie article about this new smash hit movie, JAWS. This article made it slyly plain and clear that the movie had been saved in the editing room by Verna Fields. After all, the writer inferred, no way this 27-year-old meeskite Spielberg could have accomplished this. No. No no. Certainly we must agree that the brilliant Fields had saved this childish pretender’s butt.

We can all shake our heads and laugh about that now. Verna Fields did a great editing job on JAWS, but she never set sail on the water during the months of torturous, frustrating filming of the movie. She never had to deal with the shark. Or with Robert Shaw, for that matter. 

I wish I knew who wrote that hateful piece because I’d dearly love to spread the silly article around with his name firmly attached. 

And, by the way, Verna Fields also didn’t write the music.

So there.

Oh, if I forgot to mention, this is a great dang movie.

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Let’s close out with a neat, but very small coincidence. As I was writing the start of this essay, I was simultaneously watching an old comedy on TCM, A GIRL, A GUY, AND A GOB with Lucille Ball, Edmond O’Brien, and George Murphy. 

While typing away, I heard Murphy say to Ball, “There’s a sailor on the Indianapolis who’s got an engagement ring…”

Duh-duh, duh-duh, dumpadumpadumpa….