Surfer’s Big Break: Packed Houses for Films of Boarders

It’s been years since the old Surf Theatre was torn down, but Huntington Beach residents like Dave Carlos still recall the emotional rush they felt sitting inside the downtown movie house as their favorite surfers slashed across the big screen riding perfect green waves.

It was a visceral, shared experience for young surfers who packed the theater in the 1960s and ‘70s to watch “surfumentaries” such as “Pacific Vibrations” and “Five Summer Stories.”

“I was a little kid and any time some guy in the movie would carve a wave, we would scream and yell and hoot, loving every minute of it,” Carlos said.

Most of the old theaters that catered to the surf crowd have closed or shifted to more mainstream fare, and present-day surfumentaries are now released almost exclusively on video or DVD.

But Carlos -- who at 38 still structures his life around riding waves -- is hoping to reignite the excitement that having a local cinema for surf films once meant to thousands of young wave riders from San Diego to Santa Cruz.

Last month, Carlos, a telemarketer, put up $6,000 to rent the Mann’s Pierside Pavilion theater and promote a revival of the surf movie experience. On the bill was “Burning the Map,” a documentary featuring 21-year-old Timmy Turner, a popular local surfer who starred in and helped direct his own coming-of-age film with Indonesia’s incredible waves as a backdrop.

Carlos was concerned that he might not recoup his investment, but, it turned out, he needn’t have worried. The 400-seat theater sold out -- at $8.75 a seat -- and excited viewers, including Turner’s parents, relatives and friends, who gave Carlos a standing ovation. A second show was also packed.

“They’re bringing back that spirit,” said an excited Sean Thomas, 39, whose family owned the Surf Theatre when it was home base for the beach crowd.

With the night’s success now past, Carlos said he has heard from theater owners and filmmakers from Laguna Niguel to Ventura to Hawaii, all wondering whether a new wave of interest in surf films is building. The next show in Huntington Beach is Thursday, when “The Kill 6,” a local effort from Santa Barbara filmmaker Josh Pomer, will be shown.

Carlos said he is cautiously optimistic that he has tapped into a sense of community that surfers seek.

One of the most vivid memories for Southern California surfers from the baby-boom generation was accompanying friends to see the latest surf movie by Bruce Brown or Hal Jepsen at places such as the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, La Paloma Theater in Encinitas, and the Magic Lantern Theater in Santa Barbara. Of all those, only the La Paloma still specializes in surf films.

“It was electric,” said Drew Kampion, the former editor of Surfer magazine who wrote the narration for “Five Summer Stories.”

The movie houses provided what was then the only venue for the pioneer makers of surfing films. And, surfers, usually just by word of mouth, always seemed to find out who was coming to town, and when.

For Kampion, it was Brown’s seminal surf film “Endless Summer” that kick-started his love affair with the ocean.

He remembers standing in line outside the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on what seemed a perfect afternoon.

“The place was just mobbed, and it was extreme and everyone was there. It delivered on so many levels that my imagination ... it was one of the clearest memories in my mind. I remember Robert August and Mike Hynson riding those waves at Cape St. Francis.”

It was just as important to be there as it was to watch what was on the screen, Carlos said.

Being there gave young surfers -- many of whom were still learning to ride waves -- a sense that they were part of the California surf scene, said Chris Brewster, 47, who recently retired as lifeguard chief for San Diego.

“The difference between going to a surf movie at the La Paloma and going to a cineplex is that you knew everyone else there shared your passion,” said Brewster, who used to hitchhike from San Diego to Encinitas to catch the latest offering.

For some, the movie house gathering left strong and lasting memories.

Judy Rambeau, a Santa Monica city employee, recalled the communal feeling of watching “Endless Summer” at the civic auditorium in San Gabriel.

San Diego Councilwoman Donna Frye, who is married to surfer and surfboard shaper Skip Frye, recalled the fun evenings she spent as a youth watching surf movies. “If they’re trying to revive the old spirit, it’s a great idea,” she said.

“You followed the movies wherever they were going to play. Sometimes it was at the Roxy in Pacific Beach. I remember when “Endless Summer” came out and it didn’t have any sound and Bruce Brown toured with it,” Frye said. “He would take a microphone and narrate the film adding his own humor as he went along.”

Joe Roper, 44, has fond memories of grabbing his friends on a Friday and riding their bicycles over to the Roxy to watch the latest surf movie. Now the owner of a surfboard repair business, Roper said he kept a chunk of concrete from the rubble when they knocked the theater down.

“It’s now a post office,” Roper said.

As the surf movie business withered over the years, surf videos took their place. But many of them are cranked out by surf apparel, wetsuit and surfboard manufacturers such as Quiksilver, Rusty and others, as marketing tools. Typically, a surfing team representing a company is sent to some tropical surf paradise accompanied by a cinematographer. They are then videotaped wearing the latest apparel line, shoes, sunglasses and surfing on the newest line of boards. Darin Bingham, 35, owner of Half Moon Bay Board shop on the Northern California coast, said Carlos’ effort could help revive the infectious energy of watching feature-length surf movies in a theater.

“I think it can work here because a majority of the surfers haven’t ever seen a surf movie on a big screen.... Watching a movie with hundreds of other surfers in the audience would be great,” Bingham said. “I haven’t done that since the time I saw ‘Beyond Blazing Boards’ at Half Moon Bay High School.”

The man who revved up interest in the surf movie business in Huntington Beach was Hugh Larry Thomas, the former owner of the Surf Theatre.

Now 61 and retired in Palm Springs, Thomas recalled the 1920-era building and opening it as a theater just before Christmas in 1962. It was one of the few theaters in town.

At first, Thomas showed first-run movies but later -- as the multiplexes pulled away his clients -- turned to showing skiing and surfing movies.

He also produced and filmed his own surf flick, “Standing Room Only.”

Thomas had a front row seat as the fledgling surf movie business progressed from 8mm to 16mm shorts to full-length features such as “Pacific Vibrations,” “Endless Summer,” and “Five Summer Stories.”

He recalls that some filmmakers, including Bud Browne, drove from theater to theater, toting their films and their sound equipment. Sometimes surfing celebrities such as Barry Kanaiaupuni, Gerry Lopez, Owl Chapman and Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew would pop up in the audience.

The Surf Theatre was bulldozed in 1989 to make room for a parking lot.While Carlos has no plans to open his own theater, he and his wife, Leslie, are hoping that by finding and renting venues for surf films, they will spark a revival.