As Jaws Turns 50, Who Is the Blockbuster's Real Hero?

Steven Spielberg's saga of man v shark is not the film you remember

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That relentless, rumbling music — DUM-dum DUM-dum DUM-dum — like a heartbeat gone awry. The mayor who wants to keep the beaches open (and his equally obnoxious tailoring). "You're gonna need a bigger boat." These may be your recollections of Jaws, released 50 years ago in June 1975.

But as so often with classic movies, your memory may be as faulty as an animatronic shark. Watch it again and, in particular, you may conclude that the real hero is not who it first seemed.

Jaws is a story of two halves. A killer great white shark terrorizes Amity Island, a pretty New England resort. Then the local police chief pursues it on the waves, in company with a bumptious marine biologist and an unhinged shark-hunter.

The tale of how the film was made likewise involves a man—Steven Spielberg, then 27—triumphing over nature. Jaws made his career, but only after his choice to shoot at sea almost wrecked it. He ran way over budget and schedule. Boats sank when they were not meant to. Actors feuded and drank.

Yet Jaws became the prototype summer blockbuster and a model for big-splash action extravaganzas.