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Classic July 4th fun: Jaws marathon on Encore - favorite moments

By April MacIntyre Jun 30, 2010, 16:30 GMT

A Great White shark (Carcharodon carcharias) is seen from the safety of a steel cage submersed next to a boat in the Indian Ocean, Gansbaai, South Africa, Saturday 19 June 2010. EPA/HELMUT FOHRINGER

Summer means the beach; the beach means hidden dangers lurking beneath the waves.

Rip-tides, the new teeny frontal-thong bikinis NSFW, errant Kelp that wraps around your leg, jellyfish, big blobs of tar and oil if you are in the Gulf sadly, the always pleasant sand in the crack and the ubiquitous rogue SHARK that spits in everybody's pudding, ready to chomp off your leg or worse.

The great Peter Benchley novel "Jaws" was based on the events during one fateful summer back in 1916, when New Jersey experienced a crazy heatwave that sent everybody into any nearby body of water.

The first shark victim happened in July when 23-year-old Charles Van Sant went swimming at a New Jersey beach. Less than fifty feet from shore, the other swimmers noticed a large, dark figure shadowing the unknowing Van Sant. Within seconds, he was violently pulled under the surface just before a dark red pool of blood emerged.

According to eyewitness Olympic swimmer Alexander Ott, a large triangular dorsal fin was seen leaving the bloody scene. Van Sant's injuries were so severe he bled out in minutes. Two days after July 4th 27-year old bellboy Charles Bruder went for a swim on his day off from work at the Essex and Sussex Hotel. He was found bobbing in the Atlantic with his lower half missing; he too also bled out in seconds.

Up river in Matawan Creek (near the town of Matawan) kids were playing in the lazy creek on Wednesday, July 12. Thomas Cottrell, a sea captain and Matawan resident, spotted a large shark in the river but was scoffed at. What they didn't know was that Bull Sharks (mean as Blues and Great Whites), can travel far up river and truly make fresh water (homes to many gruesome toothy fish) a more fearsome body of water than the sea at times.

One boy was killed by this shark. One man retrieving the body of the dead child was mortally bit by the rogue shark many now believe to be a Bull shark.

The last fatality in this summer of Jersey horror was Joseph Dunn, 14, attacked a half mile from the Wyckoff dock nearly 30 minutes after the attacks on Stillwell and Fisher. The shark bit his left leg, but Dunn was rescued and survived.

Benchley's book spurred the 1975 film by Steven Spielberg. That film's success changed the summer movie game completely.

M&C's favorite scene in "Jaws" hands down is the great, late Robert Shaw as Quint, as he talks about the Indianapolis that went down, and most of the service men were eaten by Tiger sharks:

Also enjoyable is the Chief's close encounter with the star of "Jaws"

In the mood for a swim? Encore will bring the shore to you this holiday weekend.

Steven Spielberg's 1975 classic film "Jaws' was based on Peter Benchley's best-selling novel. One party fueled night on the fictional Atlantic resort Amity Island (in reality Cape Cod), our slightly tipsy Chrissie decides to take a moonlight swim sans clothing while her dude passes out at the shore.

In the famous opening scene, where Spielberg revealed in a past interview that the actress who played "Chrissie" was rigged up to ropes around her waist, she is yanked below the ocean surface, and after a brief tussle, she is pulled abruptly underwater and never returns.

The performances turned in by the Chief (Roy Scheider), Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) Quint (Robert Shaw), and all the side players make this American film one of the best ever summer movies.

Encore brings you a July 4th Marathon of "Jaws"