Jaws (James Bond)
Jaws first appeared in the 1977 film
The Spy Who Loved Me as a
henchman to the
villain,
Karl Stromberg. He would later appear in the sequel
Moonraker as a henchman to the villain
Hugo Drax. However, in this second appearance, his character was changed from that of a ruthless and unstoppable killing machine to more of a comedy figure. He eventually turns against Drax and helps Bond to defeat him, and also gains a girlfriend.
In addition to having steel teeth, Jaws was also 7 feet, 2 inches (2.18 m) tall and extremely strong, which forced Bond to be especially inventive while fighting him. In combat, Bond found himself caught in an unbreakable death grip by Jaws, who was about to fatally bite him; Bond only escaped by using a broken electric lamp to send an electric shock through the assassin's teeth to stun him. Jaws also has an uncanny ability to survive any misfortune seemingly unscathed and come back to challenge Bond again. In
The Spy Who Loved Me, Jaws survives an Egyptian structure's collapse on top of him, being thrown from a rapidly-moving train, sitting in the passenger seat of a car which drives off a cliff (landing in a hut below, to the owner's dismay, though the height of the cliff is not established), a battle underwater with a shark and the destruction of Stromberg's lair. Most notably, in
Moonraker he survives falling several thousand feet without a parachute â€" granted, he falls through a circus tent and lands in the trapeze net â€" a crash through a building on top of a runaway cable car, and falling off a waterfall. In the game
Everything Or Nothing, Jaws is electrocuted and is inside a tanker that is knocked over the side of a bridge. In another instance during a fight on a large lift, Bond climbs into the
cockpit of a plane and ejects his seat as the lift plummets to the ground. When James later lands on the remains at the bottom, Jaws is nowhere to be found.
Jaws' principal
videogame appearances are in the 1997
Nintendo 64 game
GoldenEye 007 in which he is a henchman to Hugo Drax, and the multi-platform 2004 game
Everything or Nothing as a henchman to Nikolai Diavolo ("played" by
Willem Dafoe). Both games use Richard Kiel's likeness.
Most of the background information on Jaws comes from
Christopher Wood's
novelisation of the film
The Spy Who Loved Me; published as
James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me to differentiate from
Ian Fleming's novel. In Wood's version, Jaws's real name is Zbigniew Krycsiwiki and he was born in
Kraków,
Poland. Krycsiwiki was arrested by the secret police for his part in the "1972 bread riots". Whilst he was imprisoned the police "beat him with hollow steel clubs encased in thick leather" until they thought he was dead, leaving his jaw broken beyond repair. Krycsiwiki later escaped and stowed aboard one of Stromberg's vessels. Eventually he was caught, but instead of turning him in, Stromberg hired a prestigious doctor to create an artificial jaw. After 14 operations Krycsiwiki's jaw was restored using steel components that created two rows of terrifying razor-sharp teeth, although Jaws was left
mute.
Since none of the above is actually mentioned in either movie, this is not necessarily considered
canon, and Wood contradicts his own continuity when one compares his scripts and his novelisations. In the novelisation of
The Spy Who Loved Me Wood specifically states that Jaws is a mute. However, though Jaws remains mute in Wood's
James Bond and Moonraker novelisation, he actually
does speak at the end of the film. While it is possible Jaws might have somehow regained his voice between the two adventures, there is nothing on screen or in literary form to suggest how this might have occurred.
Jaws also appears to die in the finale of
James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me, when he encounters Stromberg's shark, although the scene is ambiguous in that the blood mentioned could have been interpreted as either Jaws' or the shark's. In the book, Jaws
remains attached to the magnet that Bond dips into the tank, as opposed to the film where Bond releases Jaws from the magnet into the water.
Now both hands were tearing at the magnet, and Jaws twisted furiously like a fish on the hook. As Bond watched in fascinated horror, a relentless triangle streaked up behind the stricken giant. A huge gray force launched itself through the wild water, and two rows of white teeth closed around the threshing flesh. — Christopher WoodThe initial script concluded with Jaws being killed by the shark, but after a rough test screening (where
Lewis Gilbert's grandson was present), Jaws was so well liked that the scene was changed to have him survive.
*Unlike most henchmen and villains, Jaws appeared in two movies and survived both. In
The Spy Who Loved Me, Jaws battled a shark and won, had an entire construction
scaffold collapse on top of him, drove a car off a cliff into someone's roof, and fell off a moving train and survived. Furthermore, in
Moonraker, Jaws survives a fall from an airplane without a
parachute in the opening credits; later in the movie, he survives a high-speed crash of a
tramway car in
Rio de Janeiro and a fall from an
Argentine-
Brazilian waterfall (shot at
Iguazu Falls). There is a throwaway line at the end of the movie about the American
space shuttle rescuing a man and a woman in a fragment of space station, implying that Jaws survived yet again. After every accident, a signature move by Jaws is to get up, dust himself off, and walk away.
*While Jaws was in two James Bond movies, he actually only had one short line of dialogue. In
Moonraker, towards the end of the film, he turns to his girlfriend Dolly (
Blanche Ravalec) and says "Well, here's to us".
*Although no character on the scale of Jaws appears in Fleming's books, a villain with steel teeth does appear in the original novel of
The Spy Who Loved Me, though in the book he is a simple thug.
* Richard Kiel played a very similar character in the 1976 comedy
Silver Streak.
* In the final credits sequence of the
Inspector Gadget movie, Dr. Claw's assistant is shown attending a "Henchman's Anonymous" meetings. Richard Kiel is one of the participants (along with
Oddjob and
Nick Nack) and is billed in the credits as 'Famous Guy with Metal Teeth'.
* In the cartoon
The Secret Files of the Spy Dogs, a recurring villain was "Maws," a large cat with metal teeth.
*
