One thing that a shark must do is to be constantly on the move, or else it is in trouble — and Jaws, the shark film in the making on the Vineyard, appears to have this characteristic in common with its subject.

In 1974, Susan Murphy and her husband Lynn towed the 25-foot-long mechanical shark for the filming of the movie Jaws.

Fifty years ago, when Wendy Benchley’s late husband Peter Benchley wrote a novel called Jaws, neither had any idea that it would become a phenomenon.

The Vineyard has long been a sought after location for film and TV, and town administrator James Hagerty said the policy was written in an effort to streamline the application process.

Susan Backlinie, who played the doomed skinny dipper Chrissie Watkins in Jaws, died May 11 at 77. The movie was released in 1975 and Ms. Backlinie became an enduring screen icon as the shark's first victim.

Gecimar Silva, a longtime painter from Tisbury, claimed his prize at the Massachusetts Lottery headquarters in Dorchester Friday, opting to take the one-time lump sum payment of $650,000.

At Katama, shooting started yesterday on Jaws. Around the Universal Studios offices the day before, one wouldn’t have believed it was going to happen.

The filming of the movie Jaws began that morning on South Beach, and suddenly the parking lot at the end of Katama Road looked like lower Fifth avenue — trucks galore, even a bus. Some had been rented, but others belonging to Universal Studios had traveled the 3,000 miles from Pacific to Atlantic.

For a nerve-tattering 24 hours this week, Universal Studios’ production on Martha’s Vineyard of the smash-to-be film Jaws was a suspense story that no audience will ever see.

The $3 1/2-million project had run afoul of the law — the production crew had not gotten permission to do a batch of things it was doing.

And permission-getting, which involves formal public notice (see legal advertisements, Page Two), hearings, and mature deliberation, can be agonizingly long. Production costs are budgeted at $30,000 a day.

The great grandson of the Universal Studios founders continues to formulate plans for a 50th anniversary Jaws festival on the Island, although concrete details are sparse.