Wednesday, June 25, 1975

THE MICHIGAN DAILY

Pag'e Five

Adventure film 'Jaws' shocks Crime figure testifies
,,,,.,....-, on alleged death plots

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By JANE SIEGEL
It was the first night, and the
show was a sell out. A sign
outside promised "a terrifying
motion picture from the ter-
rifying no. 1 best seller". And
the crowd lined around the
block, waiting impatiently for
their three dollars worth of
scary movie. Jaws gave it to
them.
Directed by twenty-seven-
year old Steven Spielberg, Jaws
is one of the better efforts to
emerge from the current genre
of disaster films. Unlike its.
contemporaries, Towering In-
ferno, Earthquake, Airport '75
etc.) Spielberg's production
stays within the realms of cred-
bility and realism. It manages
to avoid the shallow sensation-
alism of star-studded heroics
and glorified catastrophes.
S P I E L B E R G explores
the reactions to the situation
w i t h o u t exploiting them.
He lets his characters grow into
plausible, yet diverse, human
beings. The relationship devel-
oped between the three men
who eventually set out after the
shark (Roy Scheider, Robert
Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss),
killer becomes the film's most
interesting a n d valuable
achievement.

Where, fifteen years ago, the
audience would have watched
Godzilla eat Tokyo for break-
fast, we now see a killer shark
terrorize the small coastal town
of Amity. Shot on location at
Martha's Vineyard, the scenes
of fast moving and, with a few
exceptions, relatively authen-
tic. Real footage is interspersed
with takes of an at times ob-
vivusly mechanical shark.
For the first half of the film,
we never see the shark at_ all.
Each attack is experienced
from his viewpoint as he glides
unseen below- the surface to-
wards his next victim.
BY THE time we are shown
the actual menace, he has
grown to such evil proportions
in our minds that anything
short of Moby Dick would have
seemed inappropriate.
Speilberg plays on the audi-
ence's receptiveness to sus-
pense and illusion in a manner
which is, at first, subtle and
terrifying. After we are contin-
ually shown close ups of our
shark munching on islanders,
however, the original shock
value has been reduced by over-
exposure. When, in the final
scenes, the killer begins to look
like an overstuffed tuna, one
wonders whether the film

should have stopped while it
was ahead.
Still, it cannot be ignored that,
as a thriller, Jaws does work.
It plays on the audience's fear
of the unknown, as well as their
unsatiated curiosity about it.
In the comforting darkness of
the theater, we are able to ex-
plore this world without fear
of reprisal. The movie allows
us to vicariously experience
danger, without ever risking the
consequences.
L I K E A good old primal
scream, Jaws releases the day-
to-day tensions and pressure
which we build up and repress.
It appeals to our willingness to
be shocked and our fascination
with death and disaster. In this
sense the plot is initially irrele-
vant. The only necessary in-
gredient is a lurking menace
aand a hero to combat it.
The success of Jaws, how-
ever, stems from the film's re-
fusal to operate solely on that
level. Impending doom is not
manifested in the form of a fan-
tastic beasty, but a viable
threat from a. natural world.
The heroes are not macho men
with ultra-bright smiles but hu-
man beings who get frightened
just like us.

WASHINGTON 0P) - Under-
world figure John Rosselli gave
the Senate Intelligence Com-
mittee a detailed account yes-
terday of his involvement in an
alleged Central Intelligence
Agency plot to kill Cuban Pre-
mier Fidel Castro, according to
chairman Frank Church.
R o s s e 1 1 i ' a testimony
"filled us in with much greater
detail and a much more com-
plete understanding of . . . the
chronology of events," Church
said, adding that Rosselli's ver-
sion did not differ from what
already has appeared in news
accounts.
H 0 W E V E R, Church
indicated that Rosselli could
provide no information on whe-
ther any orders to kill Castro
originated outside the CIA. With
one exception, Rosselli also re-
fused to identify any non-gov-
ernment persons involved for
fear it might endanger their
lives, the Idaho Democrat said.
The one exception was Chi-
cago rackets chief Sam Gian-
cana, who was murdered last
week and who also had been
previously linked to the Castro
plot, Church said. Vice chair-
man John Tower, (R-Texas),
called Giancana a "peripheral
figure" in the plot, adding "our
evidence leads us to believe
Rosselli was not a peripheral
figure."
In an arrangement worked
out with the committee, Rossel-
Ii, 70, arrised and left by a back
stairway in an effort to avoid
reporters and photographers.
Church said the committee had
made no deals with Rosselli
"other than a reasonable ac-
commodation for his own per-
sonal safety."
R O S S E L L I, described
by those who have met him as
a dapper, soft-spoken gentle-
man, is fighting a government
effort to deport him to his na-
tive Italy. One of the argu-
JULY 4TH WEEKEND
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JULY 4,5, 6
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OPEN 4 P.M.



New York jet crash kills over 100

(-Continued from Page 1)
IN THE WAKE of the Ken-
nedy crash, luggage, bodies and
debris from the shattered jet-
liner were scattered over a five-
acre patch of undeveloped land.
George Van Epps, in charge
of investigation by the National
Transportation S a f e t y-
Board, was asked about eye-
witness reports that the plane
was struck by lightning.
"It's certainly something
that will be considered in the
investigation," he replied.
EPPS SAID at least two pre-
vious crashes in the 1960s were
attributed to lightning, one of
them a Pan American plane at
Elkton,. Md., and the other a
TWA airliner in Rome.
"Lightning hit the plane," de-
clared eyewitness Paul Moran,
a Nassau County police officer.
"It tilted to the right and went
about 20 more yards, then hit
the ground."
"I am almost positive the
plane was hit by lightning," said
Neal Rairden, 23, who was
pumping gas at a nearby fill-
ing station.
THE PLANE, Flight 66, was
banking low on its approach to
Kennedy at about 4:08 p.m.
EDT, 23 minutes behind its
scheduled 3:45 p.m. landing.

One of the surviving passen-
gers, Egon Luftaas of Norway,
badly burned in the crash, said
at the Jamaica Hospital Emer-
gency room:
"Going in for a landing, the
pilot went too much to the left.
YoU know, with one wing down,
not two. 'then there was an ex-
plosion. Everyone was fling-
ing around. After that I only
remember the fire."
FROM ABOVE the scene, a
police aviation unit reported,
"debris *and bodies are scatter-
ed over a large area."
The metropolitan area's fran-
tic evening rush hour was just
getting underway and within
minutes there were miles-long
traffic tieups in the vicinity of
Kennedv Airport.
At first police emergency
equipment tried an end run, us-
ing secondary roads to the air-
port. But these, too, became
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clogged and eventually rescue
squads had to be airlifted in by
helicopter.
MAYOR Abraham Beame
telephoned New Orleans Mayor
Moon Landrieu to assure him
that all possible assistance
would be given any survivors.
Then the New York mayor flew
to the scene in a helicopter.
Eastern Airlines listed the
crew aboard Flight 66 as Capt.
J. W. Kleven, 1st pilot, W, S.
Eberhart, 2nd pilot G. M. Geur-
in, and flight attendants M. M.
Davis, Robert Hoefler, Mary
Mooney and J. R. Lindsay.
Hoefler and Mooney were
among the survivors and were
listed in fair condition at a
nearby hospital.
One of those aboard the plane
was an Eastern pilot deadhead-
ing to New York. Listed with
the crew, he was Peter McCul-
lough.

ments advanced by Rosselli's
attorneys has been that revela-
tion of his CIA connection
would make him liable to retali-
ation by members of Italy's
large Communist party.
Sources have said that Ros-
selli was contacted in 1960 in
connection with a plan to poison
Castro. It remains unclear, how-
ever, whether any CIA-support-
ed attempt actually was made
Asked is Rosselli's account
substantiated previous press re-
ports of the plot, Church re-
plied, "There was no refutation
in his testimony," Church add-
ed: "I have stated previously,
I will state it again, the com-
mittee has hard evidence that
the CIA was involved in both
assassination plots and assas-
sination attempts."
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