In the deleted scene that follows, Brody and Cassidy talk while looking for Chrissie on the beach. In this version, Cassidy is testy, his ego visibly bruised by Chrissie’s “disappearance” the night before. When Brody accuses Chrissie of “running out on” Cassidy, a line that exists in the script, theatrical version of the film and in the deleted scene, Cassidy’s reaction is played much more aggressively and defensively, and therefore fits the profile of a rape case. Could he have done it? Did she run out on him? The scene is edited around behavioral and gestural complicity. His body, and the signals it sends, will determine his guilt. But Spielberg decides to take this out. It isn’t necessary. He isn’t guilty, the shark is, so why even toy with blame? Men aren’t the problem in this story. Tom Cassidy is merely in the film to lead us to the shark and he has. When grilled by Chief Brody, Cassidy bites back, firing, “Look, I reported it, didn’t I?” Killers don’t report murders. In the deleted scene, when Cassidy plucks (we don’t see him do it) a single stake from the sprawling dune fence that resembles a row of teeth or the vertebrae “of some primeval monster,” (Andrews) and then snaps and throws the stick, it’s much more forceful than the way he breaks the stake in the released version. In the deleted version, the act actually interrupts the flow of dialogue with Brody—who notices it—and more importantly, Cassidy’s credibility. It makes him capable of violent retaliation. In the take that was used, Cassidy breaks the stick nervously because he’s anxious and needs something to do with his dread. Breaking the stick is presented as more of a nervous tic and goes unregistered by Brody, who keeps talking. In the deleted scene, however, Cassidy breaks the stick as a physical representation of his anger, to accent it, and then follows with, “Look, I reported it, didn’t I?” His voice higher and more petulant in this take. In another deleted scene, Chrissie’s body isn’t found by the young Deputy “Lenny” Hendricks, but by Brody, who espies it over a sand dune and then forces Cassidy to look for himself, as if charging him with guilt. Cassidy, who is essentially ambivalent about Chrissie’s death in the released film version, is nearly hysterical in the deleted scene.

Hooper (“Think how off-putting this character could have been” -Nigel Andrews)

John Voight, Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, even Cabaret’s Joel Grey could have played Matt Hooper. But they all said no. Universal Studios’ choice was Jan-Michael Vincent, who a few years later starred in another water movie, John Milius’ elegy to surfing, Big Wednesday. Milius has been credited with writing a version of Quint’s Indianapolis speech. Even Dreyfuss said no to playing Hooper, stating he would rather watch Jaws then make it. But then he saw himself on-screen in the 1974 Canadian film The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and was so mortified by the quality of his acting and the shock of seeing his face fifteen feet high, that he panicked over his prospects, and begged Spielberg for the part. In The Making of Jaws, Spielberg states that he wanted to audition the entire male cast of Peter Bodanovich’s The Last Picture Show—one of his favorite movies—for Jaws’ male leads.