(1978) is widely viewed as the best nondocumentary surf film ever made. The movie follows three California surfers—talented Matt (Jan-Michael Vincent), crazy Leroy (Gary Busey), and sensible Jack (William Katt)—as they pass from adolescence to adulthood in the 1960s. The film's crucible is the Vietnam War.
The whole crew gets draft notices, and they all feign lunacy to avoid service, but nobody questions the war itself. , with its conservative director, conveys something else: the disdain that many California surfers of the 1960s held for hippie culture. There's a withering scene in which Matt and his wife sit down for lunch at their favorite diner, only to find that hippies have turned it into a health food restaurant.
From start to finish, is a film about loss and decline, but nothing in the film so pungently signifies the enveloping Waste Land as a hairy waiter in a tie-dyed tank top serving up bean sprout sandwiches. When Big Wednesday finally arrives, the three friends meet at the beach and turn wordlessly to face "the Great Swell" and walk, as if into battle, toward the surf. At the end of the day, they part, after a round of bare-chested bro-hugs, pausing—wordlessly again—to take in the monster waves still slamming on the outside.
(1978) is widely viewed as the best nondocumentary surf film ever made.
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