Jaws and the two musical notes that changed Hollywood forever

"(DA, DUH.)"Two simple notes — E and F — have become synonymous with tension, fear and, sharks, representing the primal dread of being stalked by a predator.

- JARED BAHIR BROWSH

And they largely have Jaws to thank.

Fifty years ago, Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster film — along with its spooky score composed by John Williams — convinced generations of swimmers to think twice before going in the water.

As a scholar of media history and popular culture, I decided to take a deeper dive into the staying power of these two notes and learned about how they're influenced by 19^th century classical music, Mickey Mouse, and Alfred Hitchcock.

THE FIRST SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER

In 1964, fisherman Frank Mundus killed a 4,500-pound great white shark off Long Island.

After hearing the story, freelance journalist Peter Benchley began pitching a novel based on three men’s attempt to capture a man-eating shark, basing the character of Quint off of Mundus. Doubleday commissioned Benchley to write the novel, and in 1973, Universal Studios producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown purchased the film rights to the novel before it was published. The 26-year-old Spielberg was signed on to be the director.

Tapping into both mythical and real fears regarding great white sharks — including an infamous set of shark attacks along the Jersey Shore in 1916 — Benchley’s 1974 novel became a bestseller. The book was a key part of Universal’s marketing campaign, which began several months before the film’s release.

Starting in the fall of 1974, Zanuck, Brown, and Benchley appeared on a number of radio and television programs to simultaneously promote the release of the paperback edition of the novel and the upcoming film. The marketing also included a national television advertising campaign that featured emerging composer Williams’ two-note theme. The plan was for a summer release, which, at the time, was reserved for films with less than stellar reviews.