The Endless Summer was released by Cinema V on June 15, 1966
Produced and directed by Bruce Brown
The Endless Summer cast: Robert August and Mike Hynson
Music by the Sandals
I remember once seeing a poster on a gallery wall that read: “There is beauty in the imperfect,” and that thought has stayed with me all these many years. It’s especially evident in some of the films I really like. I sometimes find there’s a certain charm in the unpolished performance of an earnest amateur, that is not always present in the work of the more practiced professional.
The same goes for entire films. Sometimes unabashed quirkiness wins the day. At least I think so. But in 1963, Bruce Brown could not find a single Hollywood film distributor that agreed with that premise. They saw The Endless Summer (Cpop page 280) as merely a home movie with scope. I mean, what have you got? Just three guys—two have surfboards and one has a windup movie camera—what can you do with that? Well, as it turned out, you can make a classic. But it would take Brown three years of hustling up demo screenings to prove it.
But he did prove it, and it was a classic 55 years ago, and it is even more so today. There’s a line from the movie Chinatown that goes: “politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.” Well, The Endless Summer has lasted long enough to become very respectable.
I recently re-watched it and was kind of surprised to find how well crafted a film it really is. Yeah, we loved it back in the day because it reflected our Southern California scene, even if it did move around a bit. But it is much more than that. Brown really was masterful, not only in the way he shot the film, but also in the way he assembled it. Trust me, I’ve seen my share of surf films, and 90 minutes of one ride, after another, after another, can really wear away the patience of all but the “super-stoked.”
Brown was savvy enough to understand that, for a general audience, which was what he was shooting for, you had to interject some variety at regular intervals. He knew that for a lot of folks, surfing was not as much fun to watch as it was to do. And so, he juxtaposed his surf footage with little travelogue segments going full National Geographic mode exhibiting some of the wildlife of Africa and Australia as well as little exposés of the more intriguing locals they encountered. He also included vignettes of the local surfers they met along the way. The two protagonists, August and Hynson, visit a Zulu village in Africa and take some time off for trout fishing in New Zealand. Then there were the cutaway segments back to California to stop in at some of the more renown surf sites, then to Hawaii to visit with surf celebrity Phil Edwards and see some popular Hawaiian surf sites where the big waves live.
And like most of Brown’s earlier films he makes a little time for a few of his silly, comic skits, which, along with all the other diversions, take up almost as much screen time as the surfing. But there’s still plenty of surfing to be enjoyed. And again, Brown is able to put a great deal of variety and interest into his beautiful surfing shots with all the different locations and the various types of waves they find—the short ones, the long ones, the big ones, and the small ones, while introducing some notable surfers, and revealing a little surf technique.
The Sandals wonderfully wistful Theme from The Endless Summer is still well remembered, but they actually contributed quite a bit more excellent material to the project providing some very solid aural support throughout. But the glue that holds all these assorted images together is Bruce Brown the storyteller. There’s not a word of dialog in this film; the story is conveyed completely by Brown’s narration, which is delivered in his trademark folksy, Southern California style, drawl. All in all, it’s a very respectable piece of film work, and should be on any true Californiaphile’s must see list.
Featured Califormulants
For a film made by, and featuring, Southern California surfers, there’s not allot of Southern California on display. We do make a brief visit to Malibu where we observe Miki (Da-Cat) Dora (Cpop page 235) demonstrating his surf style, and we are treated to a very brief traveling shot of an LAX parking lot filled with cars that are now fifty-eight years old, that’s nearly three generations ago, which jarringly hammers home the realization that this film is now an anachronism, a true antique. And jarred I was, seeing it again after so many years. Of course, I know it’s been a long time, but the re-watch brought that fact right to the fore. Just look at those longboards and that transistor radio! But lucky we are that it’s still here for us to savor like a fine vintage wine. As of this moment, it’s available on Amazon Prime, so start savoring.