Surfing's most shameful episode!
When I was a kid, sitting at home there in a gloomy suburb hours from the beach, I’d get my surf kicks via TV. One day, mid-summer, midday, no parent around to deliver me to the water, an old Hollywood surf movie called Big Wednesday came on.
I knew nothing about it. Didn’t know the hype. Didn’t know the praise (not much) nor the criticism (much). And it swallowed me completely into the romance of three men growing up, on the beach, as surfers around Malibu.
I ain’t the only fan. On the new Anderson Paak album Malibu, if you listen between tracks you’ll hear samples from this epic.
The great surf historian, Matt Warshaw, has a totally different take. Matt regards it as one of the most shameful episodes, ever, in surfing.
BeachGrit: When I saw this, on TV, as a kid, it painted the surfer’s life, for me, poignantly, beautifully. Better than anything before or since. What’s your take? Did John Milius nail it for you too?
In the surf media, the Big Wednesday built up was like nothing you’ve ever seen. Cover stories, making-of features, endless gossip and chatter. This was going to be the one! John Milius gets it! He surfs! Greenough was onboard, Bud Browne, PT, Ian, Bill Hamilton, Greg MacGillivray, on and on and on. This movie could not fail! And it was a piece of shit. Worse than Gidget. Worse than Ride the Wild Surf. It was a message film. Some heavy-handed bullshit about friendship, and growing up, and blah blah.
Fuck you. You crazy!
No, actually the first 20 minutes were good. The party scene. The part where LeRoy makes that kid at Malibu give his board to Jan-Michael Vincent, who’s too hung-over to walk. “I’m going to drown, and all you’re going to find is this shitty board.” That was a great line. Most every scene with Gary Busy was worth watching. Did you know he made The Buddy Holly Story the same year he made Big Wednesday?
Got an Academy Award for that one, didn’t he?
Nominated, but didn’t win.
It was a piece of shit. Worse than Gidget. Worse than Ride the Wild Surf. It was a message film. Some heavy-handed bullshit about friendship, and growing up, and blah blah.
Didn’t the surf media shit on Big Wednesday when it was released?
They lined up and took turns, yeah. Surfer called it “mediocre” and “self-indulgent” and “embarrassing.” And said Jan-Michael Vincent was horribly miscast as a drunk, which is sad and ironic but also kind of funny, given that he was on his way to becoming a total crash and burn alcoholic. Surfing said the only good thing about Big Wednesday was that it sucked so hard that Hell would freeze over before Hollywood touched surfing again.
Paint the narrative arc for me…
Three friends rule the Point, grow up, grow apart. One of the friends gets punched in the face by another one of the friends. Vietnam brings comedy and tragedy. There is a lemon next to a pie — I’m not sure what that means. In the final act, the ultimate big swell comes, and Gerry Lopez is there, and the three friends reunite at the Point, Lopez gives LeRoy a knowing smile, and the friends charge forth. Matt takes a header on the reef, the other two save him. Back on the beach, there is hugging, and vague promises to keep in touch. Cut.
Tell me the back story of Big Wednesday. It’s Lance Carson and so forth, yeah? The Malibu gang?
The party stuff in the beginning came from “No-Pants Mance,” a great short story written by Denny Aaberg, brother of California point-surf style king Kemp Aaberg. Lance was the inspiration on that one, yeah. Denny then wrote the book version of Big Wednesday, along with John Milius, and apart from the party stuff I don’t think there was much back story. Mostly just Milius having a sentimental wank about his days at Malibu. Before he went full fascist with Red Dawn and Conan the Barbarian.
Oh, the tragedy of the scene where Matt, now just slightly over the hill, takes his daughter to see him in a movie and the crowd quiets during his section and then lights up during the new hotshot Gerry Lopez part.
Yeah, the backside of the mountain. Tough. Five years later, it’d be Lopez in the theater looking noble and deflated as Tom Carroll comes onscreen and drives ‘em wild.
Y’got a favourite scene?
LeRoy during his military physical, playing the nutcase, bumming cigarettes from the shrink.
Tell you though, I hated, hated, hated Jack. Reminds me of every teacher, every lifesaver, every cop. Goes to fight yella man in Vietnam, becomes a lifeguard, a ranger.
Jack actually makes all the right choices, the sane choices, but yes he is mouthful of castor oil.
Jan-Michael Vincent. God I wanted to be that stud with his freewheeling harem. How’s he doing these days?
Drunk, broke, angry, and missing a leg. Don’t watch the video interview with him from a couple years ago. He was a bastard back in the day, I’ve heard, but jeez nobody deserves to be in the shape he’s in. Big Wednesday was Jan Michael Vincent’s greatest moment. He never looked better, and was still on his way up.
Were you surprised when the movie became a cult favourite?
Never underestimate the power of Baby Boomer self-regard. Big Wednesday was retro when it came out, and ten years later when it went big as a rental, it was retro-retro. Double-dipped nostalgia. Boomers wore their VHS machines out playing that turkey, wallowing in their imagined past. But at the time, yeah, I was surprised.
Ahhh, I always liked it because it spoke my language, except for the rescue scene at the end. It was a buddy movie for me and my mates. We still do the lines when appropriate. Still haven’t heard anyone do ‘lemon next to the pie’ without irony though.
It’s always going to be more real than Point Break. ‘Well today I got my first toob’ shits me more than surfing onshore shitbreaks in front of a caravan park.
That interview was disturbing.. Unbelievable how far he’s fallen, that guy was on top of the world, flush with cash and swimming in pussy. Wonder if the dementia/ brain damage has erased in his mind what he had..and what he has lost
Yeah, it was lame. Come on, it’s Hollywood. For kooks. not a real surf movie. I liked it anyway. (a couple of my buddies were in it) What can I say? At least the director surfed for real. Milius was no kook. Neither is Matt though. Great piece.
Have you ever seen the HBO miniseries Show Me A Hero? Check it out, it covers that exact topic. Grim.
there’s no conflict in surfing; it’s not a sport. it’s also painfully one-dimensional and dreadfully boring to anybody but the person riding the wave, or the initiated few who can recognize interesting surfing.
fuck everyone this is america and all i care about is myself
I can’t wait to surf with you Lemmy..
you wont find me. im at a secret spot
I thought you were Welsh, Lem?
im as american as the terminator
that interviewer is so patronising. kept wanting to run the narrative over with her own preferred interpretation so as to get ‘the story’.
it’s interesting how real life parallels the character in BW.
Hey–its grown on me–the trip to Baja–they ‘kinda’ nailed it–had some hairball stuff happen down there also. One overlooked seen–the drunk guy on the table–getting tubed in his mind–right before the table collapses–Classic…
Dude i loved Big Wednesday growing up, still do… does that mean i’m not cool?
Good movie. It’s not everybody’s surfing experience. It’s about a few guys’ experiences at a specific time and place. The characters are believable enough and it has humour, heart and some very good surfing.
Yeah, it is not all cool, sorry.
As Milius has said, the theme of the movie was that surfing is a beautiful and entrancing lifestyle, full of light and dark and all the things. But, at some stage, you have to leave the beach and do responsible things; have a family and provide for it etc. The full glorious surfie lifestyle is for the young. That’s the sad truth of it.
It is just a point of view. Good movie, though. Wonderfully framed scenes as well
How the hell did they surf in boardshorts? Did people have a higher tolerance to cold water then?
SURFERS TODAY ARE COMPLETE SACK-LESS TWATS, HAVENT YOU OBSERVED?
Before VHS surf movies mostly played in the movie theater. You were lucky to see a surf movie 2 to 3 times a year. The stoke would start as soon as you saw the marque. Grom’s sitting in seats eyeing out the best surfer’s to walk into theater with a foxy chic in tow. “Hey look that’s so and so.’ Then a shaper would walk in through the door etc. etc. Thats gone for most of us.. Big Wednesday, and even Point Break are pieces of “Americana Surf.” For a generation loved by many as well as another echo to head to North Shore. Matt’s an authoritative figure in SURF and much respect! Will disagree on this being the biggest turkey. I don’t know if hollywood will ever get it right… The remake of Point Break last year was really bad. As bad as a dead fresh water carp rotting on a beach! No?
I agree; the remake to point break was total shit; chasing mavericks was way better.
RIP vhs tapes
School took us on a camping trip in 1978; up the coast. A few of us surfed; I had a 6’10” ‘BJ’; my first real board. One night we were taken to watch Big Wednesday at the local theater. What a dumb movie. All I can remember is how beautifully PT front foots those single fins & the take off by Ian Cairns on the red & white board (at Sunset) in the final surf scene. Its still a great take off. Post a video of that!
I’m a younger guy, not grom but not yet over the hill,I can tell you that every poser in Florida thinks they are one of these guys, the ex ripper, the drunk who still rips the firefighter, its like those donkey’s used it as a template for cool. There’s even a guy at my home break who built every board in that movie right down to the borrowed shit board. I fortunately came up watching guys that were tweaking in small houses on el camino real lighting bums on fire and glorifying a man named “chicken” making fun of Taylor steele and surfing horribly,I might have less teeth because of it but you’ll never hear me call somone “squidlips”
Haha; I wanna see this “chicken” dude surf; sounds like some characters where you live. I spent a summer in st. augustine; it was a pretty cool place but I did notice that some surfers really tried to make it known that they were surfers, which is total opposite from where I grew up, where no one gives a fuck about being a surfer; people just surf.
In that last paragraph, you can substitute “Trump” for “Big Wednesday” and it works just as well. Fuck baby boomers.
Interesting how boomer’s ideals changed from anti war and racial equality in 60’s to present. Maybe those ideals have not changed for their generation, but sure seems they are not retiring anytime soon, not letting the next generation climb the ladder. Almost like they are kicking the people below them to get some space on top.
When you preach self-indulgence to the degree the boomers did in the 60s, there was really nowhere else to go but amassing wealth and then hoarding it.
Nothing “almost” about it.