As we approach the 40th anniversary of an American classic, and his wide-eyed, machete-wielding visage glares back at me from my desktop, I feel compelled to point out simply that Quint was a goddamn badass.
I would have followed that guy into Hell and gone down swinging next to him. Quint inspired that kind of loyalty from a little kid like me, first watching his adventures in my Dad's darkened apartment, munching on Whoppers from Burger King. Though he claims not to remember it, sometime in the early 80s, Dad bribed me with burgers to convince me to watch this scariest of fish stories on his Magnavox VCR and recently acquired 19-inch Hitachi color TV set, a huge upgrade from the 10-inch black-and-white cube on which we’d watched pro tennis and movies together for so many years before.
Sitting on the carpeted floor and leaning back on the old plaid couch, as was our habit, I was terrified by Quint's stories and his increasingly dire predicament—but unable to look away, my fast-food treats forgotten. Though he’s not the leading man in this picture, Quint is a mesmerizing scene-stealer.
The fearless fisherman hired to hunt down Bruce the killer shark in Hollywood’s first genuine blockbuster, Spielberg's 1975 classic Jaws, Quint was full of humor and humanity, a no-nonsense, salty but driven man of the sea. Quint was as magnetic to viewers as he was enigmatic to Roy Scheider’s determined Chief Brody. Initially infuriating Richard Dreyfuss's nerdy academic, Hooper, Quint earns a begrudging respect from both men as stakes are heightened amid the hunt, and scars are compared over drinks.
Already well-known for films like A Man For All Seasons, From Russia With Love and The Sting, Englishman Robert Shaw was perfectly cast as the scraggly sea captain who upped his payday from three to 10 thousand bucks for promising to bring back "the head, the tail, the whole damn thing." Quint had all the best lines and stole the show from Dreyfuss and Scheider, perfectly cast as the skeptical academic and determined chief of police who team up with Quint for a showdown with a menacing monster.
Shaw improvised many of his lines on set and struggled as a writer himself: "Writing is painful, it's lonely and you suffer and there's no immediate feedback." Many of the lines Shaw contributed are the film's most memorable. Quint is the heart and soul of the film, if you ask me.
Who could forget his somber soliloquy in The Orca's cabin with Hooper and Brody after several rounds of drinks? Quint recounts his experience as a survivor of the actual worst Naval disaster in US history, going down with the sinking USS Indianapolis after being hit by two Japanese torpedoes: "Eleven-hundred men went into the water...three hundred-sixteen men come out, and the sharks took the rest."
Quint had a lot of great lines. Some of my favorites are these:
"This shark, swallow you whole. Little shakin', little tenderizin', an' down you go. The thing about a shark... he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all come in and they...rip you to pieces."
"You have city hands, Mr. Hooper. You been countin' money all your life. What are you? Some kind of half-assed astronaut? Jesus H Christ, when I was a boy, every little squirt wanted to be a harpooner or a sword fisherman. What d'ya have there - a portable shower or a monkey cage?"
"Yeah, that's real fine expensive gear you brought out here, Mr. Hooper. 'Course I don't know what that bastard shark's gonna do with it, might eat it I suppose. Seen one eat a rockin' chair one time."
"Back home we got a taxidermy man. He gonna have a heart attack when he see what I brung him."
"I'm not talkin' 'bout pleasure boatin' or day sailin'. I'm talkin' 'bout workin' for a livin'. I'm talkin' 'bout sharkin'!"
There's a reason why the sequels to Jaws started bad and got progressively worse, and the first reason among many is the distinct lack of Quint. In real life, as well, the man died prematurely. Like Quint, Shaw enjoyed his alcoholic beverages: "I drink too much. Will you tell me one great actor who doesn't drink?" Shaw died suddenly of a heart attack at age 51, leaving us (and his 10 children) before his time.
Sometime around 2005, my wife-to-be and I caught Jaws in a small theatre showing old classics. I had never seen it on the big screen, and she had never seen it on any screen. There was a lot of screaming, jumping and flying popcorn in the packed theatre. It was plenty of fun.
Forty years after its release, Jaws remains an intense and exciting film, anchored by Robert Shaw as the mighty Quint. I think I'll pick up a copy of Jaws on blu-ray and have another go with the crew of The Orca, as it's been far too long.