"Small wave riding has changed drastically over the years, but big wave riding hasn't. It's still basically a matter of survival."
There is something so pure about these old surfing films from Bruce Brown, made at a time when outside of Polynesia and Hawaii, the sport was in its infancy. Despite a low budget and relatively primitive technical gear, he captured fantastic footage of early surfers in various locations in California and Hawaii. At this point he was mostly interested in showing these to fellow surfers to fund the next set of adventures/films. In the introduction to this one, he recalls once renting a 1000 seat auditorium in Anaheim and having just six people show up. As the original narration to Barefoot Adventure was lost he dubbed it 30 years later but was still sharp on details, and this time lag allowed him to point out things with the benefit of perspective and how much things had changed.
For example, a new surfboard in 1960 cost $75, weighed 40 lbs, and the leash had not yet been invented. There were just six flights a day into Honolulu. We see Jack O'Neill wearing an early version of his wetsuit (which he turned into a very profitable business), and no wonder, with the water temperatures in Santa Cruz about 48F.
Brown is a little scattered in flitting us about from place to place, sometimes just for brief scenes, and sometimes a little repetitious in the information he gives us. Some of places which stood out included the big waves of Oahu (at Waimea Bay Sunset Beach, and Makaha), various places in SoCal (Brooks St at Laguna Beach, The Wedge at Newport Beach with its treacherous body surfing, and Huntington Beach Pier), and in Santa Cruz (Steamer Lane, Pleasure Point).
Surfers include Del Cannon, the "Sir Laurence Olivier of Surf Films," Joey Cabell, who has "one of the smoothest and most graceful styles in surfing," and 15-year-old Robert August (who would later appear in Brown's legendary film, The Endless Summer). There are many others, including more unique fellas like Don Golden, who pioneered kayak surfing. It's a little too bad we didn't see more of the only woman surfer who appears, 14-year-old diminutive Joey Hamasaki of Hawaii.
In addition to the surfing wipeouts (of which there are many) and the goofing around which Brown freely admits was corny, we also get the majesty of enormous waves in Hawaii that were impossible to surf following a storm. As for the hijinks, they provide a little comic relief, but it was unfortunate that Brown spent time mocking the old lady tourists taking hula lessons. Maybe the best moment was when he pretends Del Cannon has his brakes go out while driving downhill. Brown deadpans: "Dell said, 'fasten your seatbelts!' Walt said, 'They haven't invented them yet!'" leading to Walt using a rope to lasso a tree and eject himself from the vehicle, which I chuckled over. I'm not sure the rather dramatic blowing up of the car later out in the field and then leaving it there was such good karma, particularly as he points out that Hawaiians weren't always friendly (I was thinking, hmm no wonder).
Overall, certainly not a masterpiece, but as with his other surf films, hypnotically mesmerizing to me, and a great window into an era.
