6 Reasons Why Jaws Is Secretly A Western

6. Amity Island

Amity Island (Amity, as you know, means friendship) is isolated, surrounded by ocean, naturally, and cut off from the mainland. Replace the ocean with desert and you could have any number of frontier towns in any number of westerns.

The islanders are a close knit community who don't take well to outsiders as evidenced when Ellen Brody is informed that she will never be an islander; their complaints about out of town car number plates; and barely sealed frustration at Chief Brody not understanding the town's economics and their reliance on 'summer dollars'.

Even when Richard Dreyfuss' Hooper turns up to help he is looked upon with suspicion by Robert Shaw's Quint, with his city ways and city hands.