Movies - TV
An Early Jaws Screening Gave An Audience Member A Disgusting Reaction
By JOE ROBERTS
The screening of “Jaws,” which took place in March of 1975 at the Medallion Theatre in Dallas, was the first time a general audience laid eyes on Steven Spielberg's film.
Film producer Richard Zanuck told The Dallas Morning News about the screening, "We knew we had something big [...] We didn't know if audiences would buy the shark."
The movie made a big impression, with Zanuck recalling how the "first enormous collective scream" caused him and his colleagues to "hug each other" in the back of the theater.
One scene led a man in the audience to vomit. It was the death of young Alex Kintner, in which the boy became the second victim of the shark menacing Amity Island.
Spielberg told Laurent Bouzereau via Vanity Fair, “A man got up and started walking out — I thought, 'Oh my God. Our first walkout.” The man began running instead.
“‘Oh, no, he's not walking out — he's running out,’” Spielberg recalled saying, ”I could tell he was headed for the bathrooms, but he didn't make it and vomited all over the floor.”
