Jaws : That one eventful day in Jaws

Chrissie Watkins was killed on 7/1.
Her remains were discovered on 7/2.
On 7/3, Larry Vaughn exclaimed "For Christ's sake, tomorrow's the fourth of July!"

That means everything from Brody getting the missing person call to the discovery of Mr Gardner's head happened on 7/2.

There are only two logical explanations: Vaughn was mistaken about the date; or, Brody typed 7/1/74 and 7/2/74 in error. Misspelling "coroner" is believable, but typing 7/1 and 7/2 instead of, say, 6/27 or 6/28not so much.

I mention that only because the handwritten reward sign in the Town Hall indicated that Alex Kintner was killed on Sunday, June 29. As every Jaws fan knows, June 29 was a Saturday in 1974.

Alex and Chrissie die in the same 24 hour period, then Mrs Kintner advertises in the papers that must have come out the next day so the wharf scene is the day after at the least. Ben that night and Larry saying tomorrow's the forth the next day so Ben on the 3rd and Alex on the 2nd or earlier. The town meeting is a crucial date- how much time passed between Alex being eaten and Mrs Kintner's advert on the town notice board precipitating the town meeting?


All the little devils are proud of Hell.

That's my point, Phy having Larry say "tomorrow's the fourth of July" really muddied up the timeline and made it seem like everything happened on the 2nd.

Here's how I think the timeline played out:

July 2 - Chrissie's remains are found in the morning, Alex is killed later that day.
July 3 - Town meeting, Brody later reading the shark book, and the crucial Ellen line "I don't think he'll ever go in the water again after what happened yesterday." Also the pier incident with Charlie and Denherder.
July 4 - The shark hunters arrive, Hooper arrives, the autopsy, the wrong shark being caught, Brody slapped (could Alex's funeral have been 2 days after he was eaten? Maybe). Later that evening, the discovery of Ben's boat.

So I think the Brody, Hooper, and Vaughn conversation actually happened on the 5th, not the 3rd.

Therefore, Vaughn should have said "For Christ's sake, tomorrow's the 6th of July!"

So where does that leave us with Hooper saying "It's Wednesday uh, it's Tuesday, I think" ? Ouch

Figured it out.

Tuesday 

If they were reffing a 1973 calendar it would make better sense


All the little devils are proud of Hell.

I'm afraid all these date inconsistencies have ruined the film for me. I hope it does fall out of the Top 250 soon; that'll confirm that it doesn't deserve to be my favorite movie anymore.

In fact and I'm sure crissttigaldames would agree the sooner it gets in the Bottom 100, the better.

Yeah it's a huge goof that the date of Alex's death is written as June 29th as Chrissie's was 2 days later yet we know Alex died probably later on the July 1st date which is when Brody records Chrissie's death.

I believe Alex was devoured on the 2nd, the day they found Chrissie's left arm, head, shoulders, sternum and portions of her rib cage.

The whole timeline would make more sense if Brody had typed Chrissie's death as being June 28th/29th to tie in with the given date of Alex Kintner's death..

Agreed. Especially since he left the house earlier saying "Season hasn't started, nobody's even here yet."

Seems odd that no tourists were around on July 1st or 2nd. In 1974 (the date on the report), July 1st was a Monday. A lot of people would have started showing up on the weekend.

Whoever looked after script continuity blew it big time