Starring: Fabian, Shelley Fabares, Peter Brown, Barbara Eden, Tab Hunter Directed By: Don Taylor Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Audience Rating: Unrated Binding: DVD Format: Color, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC Label: Sony Pictures Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 99 Release Date: January 04, 2005 Running Time: 101 minutes Theatrical Release Date: August 05, 1964
Product Description: The surfin' 60s comes alive with long boards crashing waves bikinis and beach parties when Hollywood's happening jet-set including; Fabian Shelly Fabares Tab Hunter and Barbara Eden take a wet and wild magic carpet ride of adventure in surfer's paradise. Here on Hawaii's famous North Shore they test their hearts in a tale of daytime pipeline extremes and nights of cozy romance and seduction. With a great surfin' soundtrack and a groovin' wipe-out climax you'll catch a wave and RIDE THE WILD SURF - like you never have before!System Requirements:Running Time: 101 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: NR UPC: 043396078024 Manufacturer No: 07802
Hart to Heart Wipeout I bought this movie as a cap on my Frankie & Annette MGM Movie Legends Collection (8 movies - 4 dvds) available at Amazon.com. First, I am not a surfer; but if I was, I'd be an aging surfer - at my age! As a non-surfer, I am intrigued by the surfer mystique (no bills, no responsibilities, no laundry, endless respectable surfer ladies for the unmarried surfer dude, and awesome waves that never quit you). I was hooked into buying this movie by the other Wild Surf reviews after Amazon said, "If you're buying Frankie and Annette, why don't you buy this?"
Frankly, I wasn't expecting much. I feared that my family would weary of me foisting these surf movies (and I use that term loosely in relation to F & A) upon them. I'm afraid I'd have to apologize to my wife for making her watch such a corny, irrelevant throwback. Don't worry about her; she excused herself here and there throughout the movie to attend to some more relevant pursuits.
I won't cover the same ground that the other reviewers did. I will say that once the narrator started talking while they showed scenery of Oahu's north shore, my seat was staked to the seat. No cussing, no fists thrown, no groping (except for Barbara Eden doing her Judo)... a little vacation away from contemporary "reality driven" entertainment. It was as refreshing as a bucket of the Pacific's charms tossed upon you on a hot afternoon's labor. Here's what really drove me over the edge: Susan Hart's fully clothed Polynesian dance. When she made that come here motion with her hands, I wanted to push Tab Hunter out of the way myself.
Of some background interest, movie previews are included on the Ride the Wild Surf DVD. One of the previews is for Riding Giants. I saw Riding Giants back during the theater release, and I had no clue up until then who Greg Noll was. By the end of Riding Giants, you'd better well know who he is. That said, Greg Noll's signature black and white striped swim trunks are wrapped around the Wild Surf's real 25' plus wave surfing double of the character named Eskimo (James Mitchum).
If you do get this DVD, watch the end credits first where the cast of characters is introduced picture by picture. That way you'll know who everybody is while watching the movie.
Barbara Eden is a real Judo Blackbelt! Loved this show as it typifies the surf 60's scene. What was most impressive to me is the stunning Ms Barbara Eden in one of her most down to earth characters yet. Few people know that Barbara Eden was a Judo expert and she gets a rare chance to show off her skills on this set as she playfully throws her would be boyfriend Chase to the ground after he taunts her abilities. After she humbles him to the ground while keeping him in a judo lock placing her bare foot down upon his face, he finally gives up and learns to also "lighten up" for the rest of the show. Overall some great surfing and cool waves, this is a cult classic for everyone who loves a good throwback to the early 60's innocence.
Yep. It's a surfin' movie Definitely a product of its time, if you are the kind of person who could watch people surf for hours then this is the movie for you! Lots of beautiful footage of Hawaii and some fun parts to it. Loved the Nike-Zeus skyrocket bit, but then again I'm an Air Defense Artillery guy.
"The Big Daddy Of Them All ~ You Either Have It Or You Don't" Journey back with me to the simplier, more naive time of the early to mid-60's when all young men were supposed to think about was girls in bikini's, surf music and the perfect wave. Released in '64 'Ride the Wild Surf' belonged in that genre of movies that brought teenagers flocking to the theaters in mass. In my estimation it happens to be the best of the bunch, despite the fact that Frankie and Annette are nowhere to be found.
What young girl would want to miss out on seeing Fabian, Tab Hunter and Peter Brown challenging surfings best and the waves of Hawaii in the quest to be the last man surfing. As for the guys, well how about Shelley Fabares, Barbara Eden and Susan Hart to wet you appetite?
Don't be expecting Shakespeare. Be prepared for horribly cliched dialogue poorly delivered, lots of absurd posturing and totally predictable dialogue. It's a hoot!
Poseidon's lusty men. What clean-cut young men and women! Everyone in this quintessential surfing movie acts very civilized and decent, it almost makes you long for a better, more innocent time. That's how it seems at first, anyway. But is the behavior here really so different than it was in the gladitorial days of Rome? One character makes that very same comparison and another says, "Yeah, but no one's forcing us to go out there!" referring to Waimea Beach, where 30-foot waves inspire dread of annihilation in all sane minds.
Oh really? No one's forcing them? Well, do you think that a luscious bikinied morsel like Shelley Fabares would rush to the side of a bellhop if he dropped a suitcase on his foot? The truth is, these men are in heated competition with themselves, with each other, and for the belles of the island. This does take place in Hawaii, after all, where everyone is mesmerized by "big waves." What I'm saying is that the ritual enacted here is one of deeply sublimated paganism. These upstanding young men aren't even aware of these strong inner drives that make them face suicidal risk.
The connection between society and paganism as a whole is drawn by the Fabares character, who insists that the cynical and freedom-loving Fabian go back to school. She wants to have her bullfighter and her businessman all in the same package. At the end we're left in no doubt that Fabian will be a "shark" in whatever career he chooses. Meanwhile the Tab Hunter character shacks up with a half-Hawaiian girl who seduces him with a hoochie dance, fully succumbing to an island lifestyle. This leaves only Peter Brown, who with his blonde hair and straight-edged lifestyle to me represents the Christian in the bunch. But he ends up being totally overpowered by Barbara Eden, who has a thing for rockets ( please don't tell me that I'm making up all this subtext! ) Brown eventually ends up jumping off "the sacrificial rock of the gods" to prove his virility. Oh, and did I forget to mention the scene where James Mitchum stands under a pineapple and challenges Fabian to shoot it with a harpoon?
And the Freudian subtext, though I hate Freud, is not absent either ( probably because most of the people who make movies share his mindset ). There's a great scene early on where the redheaded "girl nut" Eden, playing a karate expert named Auggie, backflips and humiliates posh boy Brown. Later she does everything in her power to reconcile with him -- she is still a woman, after all -- but then asserts her physical dominance over him, yet again, by spraying a beer can in his face... Twice. We see the bubbling froth roll down his face while Eden laughs hysterically. She is marking her territory, so to speak. This is way too pointed to be only a figment of my dirty imagination; if you showed it in a theater of people, they would all laugh, just like they do at gay innuendo in certain films. Also, Fabian's archenemy is a guy named Frank, who is always out to sabotage him, and each time ends up with his nose broken. "You broke your nose again!" James Mitchum says to the defeated Frank, who has to crawl back to the beach where no women await him. The feeling of impotence is palpable.
The presence of Robert Mitchum's identikit son, though it was surely coincidence, drives the fact home that this movie is all about macho codes, just like Mitchum Sr.'s The Lusty Men. The women tut and cluck and wring their hands over their men, and tell them they can't be beach bums forever, yet it is the death impulse of these men that attracts them. Notice how the women are photographed, from below, emphasizing their breasts, like Aphrodite statues looming beneath a blue sky. It is the image that a man has when the girl is on top and dominant -- because, like all pagan kingdoms, this one is ruled by females. Females who demand human sacrifice for their charms.
The fascinating aspect of this movie is precisely this juxtaposition of well-scrubbed, well-spoken youth and an absolute fixation with death and sex. Unlike in The Lusty Men, however, where Arthur Kennedy marries well and leaves the bullring before it's too late, these characters, for all their admirable qualities, will never get off the island.
Anything Goes Trivia
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