Surf Party - 1964

"Where'd you surf in Phoenix? On a sand dune?" – Richard Crane as Sgt. Wayne Neal

American "beach movies" are usually happy affairs with goofy characters and humorous situations abounding, mixed in with frolicking young people in swimwear getting a lot of exercise. The films are almost always taking place in colorful southern California with a main co-starring role belonging to the Pacific coastline rolling in one frothy tall wave after another amid a rock and roll sound track. Surf Party has all of this, to a point, but director Maury Dexter gives us a black and white film with a lot of tension that comes about because, like the titular character in the film that sparked the beach movie cycle, Gidget (1959), an outsider intrudes upon the regimented and insular sub-culture of surfing does-and-don'ts and causes an uproar, and in Surf Party it is three young women from Phoenix.

The three arrive with a small camper in tow (which incredibly becomes much larger when we view interior scenes) all determined to become surfers and looking for an instructor. Right off they run into no-nonsense police sergeant Wayne Neal (Robert Crane) in full suit and tie, on the beach, who has a bit of a bias against all surfers, and drops a small tidbit of jaded dialogue wishing the whole sport was illegal. He provides the girls with a few questions and warns them against sleeping overnight on the beach. The girls actually know this already, tipped off by local surf shop owner (Bobby Vinton) who they return to for help in learning on how to ride the waves. Their schooling gives us actual teaching and explanations about "rails" and not using the board certain ways because it will lead to knobs developing on your knees. In this way, Surf Party is taking its subject much more seriously than most beach films which seemed to be undecided whether the sport was worthwhile or simply the domain of idiots and social drop-outs.

In the much later beach movie Lifeguard (1976), the whole concept of beach culture is questioned, and the matter shows up in a simpler format in Surf Party, mirroring the earlier Gidget yet again. Can a person pursue a beach lifestyle and still be a functioning, mature adult? The idea gets put through its paces in the script for Surf Party by Harry Spaulding, but there's not a lot of surprises here because we know reality is beaming down hard on the bikinis and surfboards, and the eventual answer is obvious (though the Sam Elliott Lifeguard does develop the answer into a more sensible and charitable way while staying more or less true to the template laid down by Gidget).

In the 1991 Point Break, the issue is dealt with again but in a broader way in which authority itself is questioned when up against beach culture and the desire for freedom, and like Gidget, Surf Party, and Lifeguard, it finds a way to compromise through the contradictions and end with sand still in the toes of the stars. In Surf Party, though, the three girls, who were not running away from life but simply needed to learn to surf, they reach the end credits still whole (something we can't say about all the male leads) but now older, more mature and equipped with wave mastery.

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