The Endless Summer

Title

The film's title comes from the idea expressed at both the beginning and end of the film that, if one had enough time and money, it would be possible to follow the summer up and down the world (northern to southern hemisphere and back), making it endless.

Development

Brown remembered, "I felt if I could take two years to make a film, maybe I could make something special".

Brown's original concept was for Cape St. Francis to be the main destination, but through the suggestion of a travel agent, during the planning stages of the film, that a round-the-world ticket, would cost $50 cheaper than just a Los Angeles to Cape Town, South Africa, round-trip flight. after which Bruce came up with the idea of following the summer season by traveling up and down the world.

Production

The Endless Summer was filmed in:

Southern Hemisphere: South Africa (Cape St. Francis), Australia, New Zealand (Manu Bay), and Tahiti.
Northern Hemisphere: Hawaii, California (Salt Creek Beach, Steamer Lane, Malibu), Senegal, Ghana (Labadi), and Nigeria.

Mike Hynson and Robert August had to pay $1,400 for their own around-the-world tickets, and Brown required a commitment of three months. Production lasted four months.

The opening shot of Mike Hynson and Robert August as silhouettes walking to the beach with burnt orange sky evokes the movie poster.

Cast

Mike Hynson
Robert August
Corky Carroll
Nat Young
Butch Van Artsdalen
Mickey Dora
Dave Thynell Using photo techniques for the central image and hand-lettering the title Van Hamersveld created a “national phenomenon”

Distribution

Bruce Brown, at first, narrated the silent film live, from the stage, and accompanied it with tape recorded music, at school auditoriums, and similar venues, with R. Paul Allen collecting tickets, travelling by camper. He later took the completed film to several Hollywood studio distributors but was rejected because they did not think it would have mainstream appeal. took The Endless Summer to Wichita, Kansas and four-walled the Sunset Theater for two weeks, amidst a projectionist strike, with a bomb threat on the first showing, where moviegoers lined up in snowy weather in the middle of winter, selling out multiple screenings, and locally outgrossing  My Fair Lady. Distributors were still not convinced and Brown rented a theater in New York City where his film ran successfully for 48 weeks. When distributed by Cinema V, The Endless Summer grossed $5 million domestically and over $20 million worldwide.

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an aggregate score of 100% based on 23 critic reviews. Roger Ebert said of Brown's work, "the beautiful photography he brought home almost makes you wonder if Hollywood hasn't been trying too hard". Time magazine wrote, "Brown leaves analysis of the surf-cult mystique to seagoing sociologists, but demonstrates quite spiritedly that some of the brave souls mistaken for beachniks are, in fact, converts to a difficult, dangerous and dazzling sport".

In his review for The New York Times, Robert Alden wrote, "the subject matter itself—the challenge and the joy of a sport that is part swimming, part skiing, part sky-diving and part Russian roulette—is buoyant fun".

Legacy

When The Endless Summer premiered on June 15, 1966, it encouraged many surfers to travel abroad, giving birth to the "surf-and-travel" culture, with prizes for finding "uncrowded surf", meeting new people and riding the "perfect wave". It also introduced the sport, which had become popular outside of Hawaii and the Polynesian Islands in places like California and Australia, to a broader audience.

The then-unknown break off Cape St. Francis in South Africa, characterized as having the “perfect wave”, became one of the world's most famous surfing sites thanks to The Endless Summer.

In 2002, The Endless Summer was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Gallery

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Sequels

In 1994, Brown released a sequel, The Endless Summer II, in which surfers Pat O'Connell and Robert "Wingnut" Weaver retrace the steps of Hynson and August. It shows the growth and evolution of the surfing scene since the first film, which presented only classic longboard surfing. O'Connell rides a shortboard, which was developed in the time between the two movies, and there are scenes of windsurfing and bodyboarding.

The 1994 film illustrates how far surfing had spread since 1964, with footage of surf sessions in France, South Africa, Costa Rica, Bali, Java, and even Alaska. The 1994 sequel follows a similar structure to the original, with another round the world surfing adventure reflecting on cultural differences since the first film was shot. The South Africa material includes a return visit to Cape St. Francis, where the “perfect wave” had deteriorated somewhat, due to onshore construction projects.

In 2000, Dana Brown, Bruce's son, released The Endless Summer Revisited, which consisted of unused footage from the first two films, as well as original cast interviews.

References

External links

The Endless Summer official website
The Endless Summer at Encyclopedia.com
Dusters California skateboards (May 29, 2014). A chat with Endless Summer director, Bruce Brown via YouTube
The Sandals.