The One to Watch: Jaws

Best enjoyed with speakers ON

Er, hellooo! Jaws has only been on the telly about 5,000 times you know.
Excuse me. Do you think I would waste a whole One To Watch telling people to view a 33-year-old movie on ITV3?

You might if it was a quiet week.
Stop carping. It might be quiet, but “still waters run deep” for the shark royal is right here in Liverpool.

Aha! You literally have missed the boat this time. That visited in June. Not the Ark Royal. I mean Jaws. The greatest great white of them all who makes bathers panic and tears them limb from limb so that their bits and bobs bob on the high tide.

A maneater with a big mouth then?
Yes, or you might be thinking of Abi Titmuss who's also in Liverpool this week.

Jaws had better not sink his teeth into one of those iron chaps on Crosby beach or he'll know it.
Do you mean Another Plaice? Do not fear, for we are talking about one Liverpool man's a remarkable homage what is regarded as the first blockbuster movie.

Ed McCormack, 43, owns one of the world’s largest collections of Jaws-related memorabilia, and he has just put it all on show at Microzine.

Big fish in a small pond?
You might say that. Ed, from Tuebrook, fell for Jaws hook, line and sinker in the hot summer of 1975. “Images started filtering through and appearing in magazines here in the UK, soon after

the movie opened in the US,” he says. “I patiently waited and finally my father took me to see the movie on the day it opened here in Liverpool at the ABC Lime Street on Boxing Day 1975.

“That fateful day changed my life.”

So Ed's still at it?
A dab hand. “My parents bought me lots of Jaws items back in the day, badges, mugs even a Jaws football,” he recalls. Unfortunately, then came what the fish-loving fanatic describes as the “wilderness years” before the net became common place. Nowadays, thanks to the web, Ed swims happily with fellow shark lovers and collectors “to finally meet, share items and of course strike up ongoing friendships”.

Has Ed got a gillfriend?
What are you angling at?

What's his prize catch, then?
A chunk off the side of the Orca. This is the vessel in the Steven Spielberg movie that was filmed off Martha's Vineyard in New England, and the setting for the seaside resort of Amity. It was given to him when he visited a Jaws festival there. Ed has also created a spoof Jaws newspaper and even produces DJ mixes based on the Jaws theme tune. At Microzine, visitors can expect to see rare posters, mugs, books and all manner of Jaws-related stuff.

Do say: "Hmmm. The shark stands in for a variety of fears—uncontrolled organic nature threatening the artificial society; big business corrupting and endangering community; disruptive sexuality threatening the disintegration of the family and traditional values—which Jaws tries to contain through the reassuring defeat of evil by representatives of the current class structure.

Don't say: It's only a fish.

Jaws exhibition, August 2-31, 2008, Microzine, 65-67 Bold Street, L1. 0151 709 7282