“but its impact as the first true blockbuster in Hollywood history”
Evidently, this writer has never heard of Gone With the Wind (1938). I caught a little of the Today show last week and Boy George was on. Matt Lauer claimed that Boy George had changed the musical world and, therefore, the world in the 80s. Peoples’ use of mindless hyperbole when discussing entertainment knows no bounds. It is amazing.
I will never forget the summer of 1975. I begged my parents for weeks to take me to that movie. Then finally my father took me on a hot summer night. I can still remember the lines wrapping around the cinema and people pushing and shoving to get near the front of the line. I never saw anything like it. I think the movie house we went to had three theatres - this was before the age of multiplexes - and all of them were showing Jaws. We stood in the muggy air outside for over two hours before we finally got into one of the showings.
Audiences were not as jaded as they are today, so during the movie, everybody was screaming at the scary parts and some were running from the theatre. I ended up seeing that movie two more times that summer.