MY JAWS FRIGHTMARE

EVEN 50 years on, that eerie, two-note bass theme still fills movie fans with a sense of impending doom.

- BY SARA WALLIS

John Williams’ brilliant music peaked the tension ahead of shark attacks in Jaws, leaving moviegoers traumatised, but making the film was famously traumatic for director Steven Spielberg too.

Spielberg goes into detail about the hair-raising experience of spending millions making the movie with his nascent career on the line - amid malfunctioning mechanical sharks and sinking boats - in a new 90-minute documentary.

Now 78, Spielberg details his ordeal in Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story, to air on Nat Geo and Disney+ next Friday.

The legendary director says his first contact with the story was when he saw a stack of papers in the office of producer Richard Zanuck and his partner David Brown.

Spielberg recalls: “I looked at the top sheet and it said Jaws, by Peter Benchley. And I had no idea what that meant, ‘Jaws’. I mean, was it the history of dentistry?

“I read it and I was enthralled. It frightened me so much. I was so angry at being frightened that I wanted to frighten back. I'll make this movie and scare them all back.”

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However, the shoot was beset by problems from the beginning. For authenticity, Spielberg wanted to film on the real ocean instead of a sanitised, safe studio water tank.