The Endless Summer (1966)
Catch a few waves with this 1966 title from producer/director Bruce Brown, an early pioneer of surfing documentaries, the most famous of which is this legendary film. Brown and his camera follow two young surfers — Mike Hynson and Robert August — around the world in search of the perfect wave, finding a few of them as well as some colorful local characters at their various stops, which include the coasts of California, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, Hawaii, South Africa and more. Befitting the surf culture it celebrates, The Endless Summer is presented in a fairly relaxed and laid-back manner, especially when compared with other docs of that era, and is beautifully shot. Following this film is Brown’s 1994 documentary The Endless Summer II, which follows a couple of other young surfers as it also shows how the surfing scene had grown in the nearly 30 years between the productions. After that is The Endless Summer Revisited (2000), on which Brown served as an executive producer and which was written and directed by his son, Dana Brown. It is made up of unused footage from the first two Endless Summer documentaries. The evening concludes with two documentaries about motorcycle sports: On Any Sunday (1971), which Bruce Brown produced and directed, and On Any Sunday: Motocross, Malcolm & More (2001), written, produced, directed and edited by Dana Brown. — Jeff Pfeiffer
