Jaws: Amity Island on Martha's Vineyard

The film opens with a night beach party. Chrissie Watkins meets Cassidy at a bonfire, strips off and swims out alone; the bonfire scene was shot on South Beach, the three-mile ocean beach that locals also call Katama Beach, while Chrissie's death in the water was filmed off nearby Cow Beach. South Beach is still Edgartown's big public ocean beach, a major summer destination with the same crashing surf. Come at dusk and the opening is easy to picture.

Visitor guidance: A public ocean beach; the real dangers are strong tides and rip currents, not sharks.

After the first death, Brody plans to close the beaches and buys the materials for his beach-closing signs at the corner of Water and Main, the Edgartown town centre that plays Amity. The whaling port's captain's homes, with their rooftop widow's walks, still line Water Street above the harbour. Principal photography began on the island on 2 May 1974. The junction is unchanged in outline, and the white clapboard streets behind it still look like a film set left standing.

Visitor guidance: Water and Main is the middle of Edgartown; the captain's homes line Water Street.

Mayor Vaughn corners Brody on the little ferry to Chappaquiddick and talks him out of closing the beaches, backing the coroner's claim that the death was a boating accident. The crossing is still made by the On Time II and On Time III, which take pedestrians, bikes and up to three cars at a time. The ride is short and the water is narrow, and the mayor's quiet pressure is one of the film's most uncomfortable small scenes.

Visitor guidance: The ferry runs between Edgartown and Chappaquiddick for pedestrians, bikes and up to three cars.

On a crowded beach the Kintner boy, Alex, is taken in front of the summer crowd; his mother searches the water and later posts a three-thousand-dollar reward for the shark. The scene was shot at Joseph Sylvia State Beach, the long barrier beach between Edgartown and Oak Bluffs that separates Sengekontacket Pond from Nantucket Sound. It is still a public beach, ocean on one side and pond on the other, with the road running along the spit.

Visitor guidance: A public barrier beach between Edgartown and Oak Bluffs, with the pond on one side and the ocean on the other.

On the Fourth of July the shark slips under the American Legion Memorial Bridge into Sengekontacket Pond, where Michael Brody and his friends are sailing. A boater is killed, and Michael sees the man bitten in half before fainting. The bridge, whose midpoint marks the Oak Bluffs–Edgartown line, is now known as the Jaws Bridge; jumping from its railings into the channel below is a local rite of summer. The pond beyond is shallow and quiet.

Visitor guidance: The bridge carries the road along State Beach; the channel below connects the pond to Nantucket Sound.

Brody and Hooper come to Menemsha to meet Quint at his pier-side office and charter the Orca. The workshed was built for the film on North Road at the end of the harbour inlet, between the general store and the Menemsha Galley; it was dismantled afterwards and the site restored. The shack is long gone, but Menemsha is still a working fishing village, with boats in the harbour and the same docks that doubled for Amity.

Visitor guidance: Menemsha is a working harbour in Chilmark; the shed stood at the end of the inlet on North Road.

The three men sail out and the shark rises behind the boat. Brody backs into the cabin and tells Quint he will need a bigger boat. Quint harpoons it with a barrel, which the shark drags underwater; that night he tells them he survived the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, where sharks killed many sailors. The sea scenes were shot over 155 days between Oak Bluffs and East Chop, and the water out there still looks empty enough for a fin to appear.

Location precision: The shark hunt ranges over open water between Oak Bluffs and East Chop; the pin marks East Chop, the nearest land.

The end: the shark explodes, Hooper surfaces, and he and Brody paddle back to shore on the remaining barrels. The final two shots show the Cape Poge Lighthouse off to the right as they swim, filmed on the lonesome northeastern tip of Chappaquiddick. The tower can be reached by a 3.5-mile hike from Dike Bridge or by four-wheel drive. Facilities are few out there, so pack water and expect a quiet, exposed shore.

Visitor guidance: A 3.5-mile hike from Dike Bridge or four-wheel drive gets you there; facilities are few, so pack essentials.