Ride the Wild Surf is romantic drama in the beach party style. It was filmed in 1963 and distributed in 1964. Unlike most films in the genre, it is known for its exceptional big wave surf footage – a common sight in surf movies of the time, but a rarity in beach party films.[1] Likewise, the film has only one pop song – the titular Jan & Dean track, which is heard once, at the end of the film.
Plot
The story follows three surfers Jody Wallis (Fabian), Steamer Lane (Tab Hunter) and Chase Colton (Peter Brown), who come to Hawaii's Oahu Island to ride the world's biggest waves and compete against surfers from all over the world. Steamer falls in love with Lily Kilua (Susan Hart), whose mother objects to the romance because she considers surfers to be "beach bums;" self-described college drop-out and surf bum Jody falls for the demure Brie Matthews (Shelley Fabares), and tomboy Augie Poole (Barbara Eden) falls for the relatively straight-laced Chase.
Music
The soundtrack was composed by Stu Phillips - it was the third film score he had ever composed. Phillips also founded Colpix Records and produced hits for Nina Simone, The Skyliners and one of Ride the Wild Surf's stars, Shelley Fabares.
The title song was written by Jan Berry, Brian Wilson, and Roger Christian, and became a Top 20 national hit, reaching Billboard's #16 spot.[2]
Production
Location
Unlike most of the Hollywood beach movies - whose location was Southern California – Ride the Wild Surf was filmed in Hawaii in 1963 at a time when environmental conditions created exceptionally large waves. In November and December 1962, Waimea broke often. The jet stream had altered its course temporarily and huge west swell surfs became common all the way through the following February, which was when Columbia arrived to shoot the movie.
Casting
Jan & Dean both were scheduled to appear in the film, but were pulled by Columbia after Dean’s friend, Barry Keenan, became involved in the kidnapping of Frank Sinatra, Jr.[3]
The surfboards used in this film were by Phil of Downey, California - aka Phil Sauers, the maker of "Surfboards of the Stars."[4] Sauer is portrayed in Ride the Wild Surf as a character, played by Mark LaBuse. Sauer was also the stunt coordinator for the film.
Stunts
Surfers Mickey Dora, Greg Noll and Dick Ziker performed a large part of the surfing seen in the film.
Costumes & Make-up
Of the three surfer leads, raven-haired Peter Brown was made into a blonde by makeup artist Ben Lane (to match the hair of Brown’s surfing double – and to keep all three men from being brunettes), which required his girlfriend, the blonde Barbara Eden, to have auburn hair; likewise the dark-haired Shelley Fabres – who is paired with the dark-haired Fabian, became a Scandinavian blonde. Susan Hart’s black hair was sufficiently indifferent to male counterpart Tab Hunter’s that no change was required.
The stunt surfers were given swim trunks that matched their movie star counterparts, except for star James Mitchum, who was instead given trunks that replicated his stunt double Greg Noll’s famous black & white ‘jailhouse stripe’ boardshorts.
Movie tie-in
Although the film featured lots of music, it had only one song - the 1:07-long version of "Ride The Wild Surf". A 12-inch LP, “Jan & Dean Ride The Wild Surf,” was released by Liberty Records in connection with the film. The cover, rendered in a Mondrian style collage, featured a photo of Jan & Dean accompanied by 11 photos from the film, with copy written to make it appear as though it was a soundtrack album: “Jan & Dean sing the original soundtrack recording of the title song from Ride the Wild Surf.” The notes on the back cover featured an endorsement written by Ride the Wild Surf star Shelley Fabares. Of the 12 tracks on the LP, only one was from the film: a 2:13-long version of the title song.
References
External links
