Memories of JAWS 2: My first time viewing
“Hook us up another pinball!”
Hello, Islanders,
The third week of June 1978 was a hell of a week. Monday, June 12, 1978 found me pacing in the lobby of the Britton Plaza Cinema in Tampa, Florida as the manager worked on the upcoming showtimes for Friday. The reason for my pacing? JAWS 2, a film I had been looking forward to for over a year, would be coming out on Friday and my friends and I were intent on being the first ones in line.
If you’re under the age of 35, you’re probably wondering why we were planning on being in line. Today’s cinemas have computerized box offices. You can walk up on Saturday and buy a ticket for a show a week later. You couldn’t do that in 1978. The box offices used hard tickets, each one with a distinct number on it. You could only buy tickets for the next show. If the ticket numbers in the machine began with 85000, and the auditorium seated 900 people, the person in the box office would have to keep an eye on the tickets sold to ensure that didn’t oversell the auditorium. Should ticket 85899 be sold, you would announce to the people in line that the show was sold out and then announce that you are now selling tickets for the following show. It could get quite confusing, especially for theatres that only sold tickets in one color. As a young man I worked in a theatre like that and you would have to also pay attention to the ticket numbers because people who were upset they couldn’t get into the current show would buy tickets for the “next” showing and then try to get into the one they were shut out of. Not cool.
I learned that the first show on Friday would be at 11:30 am and quickly alerted my friends. There were six of us that had been pretty much inseparable since we met in school two years earlier and the summer was no different, especially when it came to going to the movies. It was easier in the summer to meet as a group but during the school year we would meet at lunch and decide who was going to wait in line. We would give our money to one person who, immediately after school, would rush to the theatre and get in line to buy tickets for the 7:00 pm round of shows. That person would then wait in the line to get into the auditorium. The rest of us would show up with McDonalds for the one that waited, ensuring he had dinner that night. I should also note that certain theatres played certain studios. There were two theatres in Tampa that played primarily films from Universal – the Britton (in South Tampa) and the Floriland (in North Tampa). This meant that the film was only opening in two theatres in the city. As we all lived in South Tampa, we chose the Britton. We agreed that if we got to the theatre at 10:00 am, we should be assured of purchasing the first tickets. Also, in the same shopping center was our home away from home, the Book Nook bookstore. We could rotate our place in the ticket line and go hang in the bookstore. Problem solved.
The next few days were a blur as we counted down the hours. We were also met with a problem. It seems that Grease was going to be released the same day as JAWS 2. We were all huge John Travolta fans, thanks to “Welcome Back, Kotter” and Saturday Night Fever, so we had to make a decision. I’ll fill you in at the end of the piece. Thursday night found us all at our friend Ben’s house, where we gathered to watch a new show on ABC called “20/20.” They had been advertising all week a special look at JAWS 2, so we watched and hung on every word. We were shocked when Roy Scheider told the reporter that he didn’t want to do the film and wasn’t happy. And, when asked if he’d do a JAWS 3 and Scheider feigned Jumping off of a bridge, I feared the worse.
Friday morning came early, and we all met at the theatre at 10:00 am. To our shock there was a kid standing in front of the box office. WTF?? His mother had to get to work so she dropped him off early. What kind of JAWS nerd shows up to a theatre two hours before showtime?? Wanting to purchase the first ticket I told him that we would buy his ticket for him. He seemed happy and agreed. At about 10:45 an usher came out to tell us that tickets would be on sale soon. He then said he had seen the film the night before. “Guess how the shark dies,” he said? As I contemplated a mercy killing he just laughed and went inside but muttered something about “a giant French fry.” Prick.
Being first in line we sent one of our group to “hold” seats for us while the rest of us went to the concession stand. At the time, the Britton was a beautiful three-plex, with a huge 900 seat auditorium with comfortable seats and red velvet curtains across the screen. Our designated seat grabber – I think it was Rick Sousa – held our seats – middle of the row, middle of the auditorium. Finally, with snacks in hand we settled back as the curtains opened. There was a smattering of noise when the Universal logo hit the screen. When ROY SCHEIDER came up, the place erupted in applause. Good crowd.
The experience of that first viewing is still in my mind. The fin in the harbor. The water skier. Eddie’s death. Mike Brody’s rescue. Marge’s tragic demise. One vivid memory occurred during the helicopter rescue scene. When Captain Jerry Baxter yelled at the kids to “throw me a line,” our friend Scott Gilbert called out, “two guys are walking down the street.” The place roared with laughter. As Brody rescued Sean and Jackie and paddled away we all said, “I can’t wait to see it again.” So we did. We just hung out in the lobby and went in with the crowd for the next show. We did the same thing three more times that day. We were truly young men on a mission.
So Mike, you ask, what about Grease? Since we saw five shows of JAWS 2 on Friday it only seemed right to go to the Austin Theatre and see all five shows of Grease on Saturday. We capped the weekend by seeing JAWS 2 three more times on Sunday. Ah, the seventies!
Words by Michael A Smith. Michael is co-author of Jaws 2: The Making Of The Hollywood Sequel. You can order the book by contacting Michael at OsFanMike@aol.com.
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