The Endless Summer II

Retrofit Drive In Wipeout

May 22, 2021

In 1966, if you were tired of waiting for the Summer of Love, tired of Vietnam, tired of .32 a gallon gas and new home prices around $23,300 (so, a $225 a month mortgage payment)...there was a way to escape all the nastiness.

The Endless Summer (1965) was playing somewhere in an air conditioned theater. Bruce Brown had spent ten years making surfing movies and this was his masterpiece. Not much of a plot, no car chases or bad guys. Just a couple of Cali boys bumming around the world with their surfboards in search of the perfect wave, in search of a summer that never ended.

Robert August (even the star had a summer name) and Michael Hynson head east from blustery California, to the waves of West Africa, to Australia, to Tahiti. On and on into the sun. Bruce Brown narrates like Rex Allen doing a Disney prairie dog film. But after so many wide open lens shots of our nearest star, you too begin to live for the sun.

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Almost 30 years after that summer never ended, Brown had a great idea. Let’s do it again!

It’s 1994, the surfer boys this time weren’t even born when the first one was filmed. Robert “Wingnut” Weaver and Patrick O’Connell crash at some of the original sites, add some 90s swagger to it all, and it’s “Dude, where’s my board?”

“I found this sequel much better than the more famous Endless Summer,'' wrote one blogger. “That was good, but this is far better and a big reason is better camera lenses and techniques.”

Bingo. Most people don’t even remember it (too many MTV Spring Breaks, etc.) but ESII is beautiful to behold. It comes complete with a topless beach and a hungry alligator.

Surf’s up! Then if you’ve been following Gene Autry’s underground epic, we are up to Chapter 10 of 12 of The Phantom Empire. The cartoon takes us back to the beach as Mickey and Donald ride the wild surf in “Hawaiian Holiday.”