Product Details

• Actors: Bruce Brown, Wayne Miyata
• Directors: Bruce Brown
• Writers: Bruce Brown
• Format: Box set, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 6
• Rating: Unrated
• Studio: Image Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: May 11, 2004
• Run Time: 440 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0001UZZMW
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #37,475 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Bruce Brown: The Golden Years of Surf Collection" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Get ready to hang ten with the "Fellini of Foam," filmmaker Bruce Brown, the pioneer of surf filmmaking! The director of The Endless Summer travels the globe filming the world's greatest surfers as they search for the perfect wave, and now you can go on the ultimate thrill ride with the world's wildest waves! Bruce's first film, Slippery When Wet, follows five surfers on their dream trip to Hawaii, living and surfing on the North Shore of Oahu on $100 a month. Experience the trials and tribulations of a Barefoot Adventure from the Wedge to Waimea, Honolulu to Huntington, Santa Cruz to Kaui, featuring a Bud Shank score and some of the biggest surf ever including the legendary Point surf at Makaha. Then go Surf Crazy deep in unsurfed Mexico along with California surfing and the mammoth waves of Hawaii, with one of the biggest waves ever ridden at Waimea Bay. Bruce's fourth movie spends Surfing Hollow Days in Mexico, California and Florida, along with a trip to Australia and Hawaii with Phil Edwards, featuring a fifteen-foot shark checking the line-up at Rincon and the first wave ever ridden at Pipeline. His fifth film, Waterlogged, features highlights from his first four films and spotlights some of the best from four years of surf photography, while three of his best short films are collected in Surfin' Shorts, featuring "The Wet Set" (with the Hobie-MacGregor Surf Team), "America's Newest Sport" (with the Hobie Super Surfer Skateboard Team), and an early TV special including the first surfing trip to Japan with 12-year-old Peter Johnson and Del Cannon in a segment filmed but not used for The Endless Summer. You'll never want to touch dry land again!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars The Early Surf Film As American Folk Art (Or, Del Cannon Lives!), June 17, 2009

By	J. E. Barnes (Bayridge, Brooklyn, New York) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Before surfer and filmmaker Bruce Brown produced and released his classic surfing documentary, 'The Endless Summer,' to eventual worldwide success in 1964, he created five other feature-length marvels that are far less known outside of the surfing community: 'Slippery When Wet' (1958), 'Surf Crazy' (1959), 'Barefoot Adventure' (1960), 'Surfing Hollow Days' (1961) and a compilation film, 'Waterlogged' (1962).

Available together here for what is very likely the first time (and with an additional DVD, 'Surfin' Shorts'), The Bruce Brown Golden Years Of Surf Collection 1958-1963 represents a kind of American folk art of cinema (subtype: sports; sub-category: surfing).

Though not as highly polished as 'The Endless Summer,' these films, which in many ways resemble other amateur narrated travelogues of the 1950s, spring fully to life for six reasons: Brown's eye and ear, on both water and land, for what is colorful, exciting, and dynamic; his warm sense of humor; his subtle but highly developed sense of the romantic; his judicious editing style; the cast of surfers presented, which includes legends Phil Edwards, Jose Angel, Joey Cabell, and Kimo Hollinger in addition to what appear to be Brown's own special cadre of adventurer friends (Del Cannon, Kemp Aaberg, Mike Diffenderfer, Robert August, Freddy Pfhaler, and Henry Ford, among others), and the outstanding original musical scores, two of which are provided by jazz master Bud Shank.

When the viewer's eye is not on the surfing at Pipeline, Sunset Beach, Makaha, Waimea Bay, Ala Moana, and Velzyland in Hawaii, or at Malibu, Rincon, or Trestles in California, it is very likely to be on the late Del Cannon, whose presence subtly dominates these films in a fashion almost equal to Brown's.

Hilariously but accurately called 'the Laurence Olivier of the Surf Film' by Brown's filmmaking son, Dana, the straight-faced Cannon seems willing to commit himself to any staged comic vignette, from toe-wrestling with his cronies on the North Shore during a period of flat surf, driving an ancient car down the steepest road in Oahu without brakes, or attempting to mix and press a new board after breaking into a friend's surf shop. Fleeing in error and terror with two enormous polyurethane feet formed around his own when the shop owner pulls up outside, Cannon plunges into the harbor in the best silent film comedy tradition.

It may be that Cannon's repeated willingness to participate in these comic vignettes drew both envy and derision from other surfers as well as the growing surfing establishment. Though the tall, handsome, and wide-shouldered Cannon was one of the five surfers who joined Greg Noll in successfully surfing Waimea Bay for the first time in November of 1957, and was, according to Brown, the first surfer to ever surf Japan, Cannon has largely been relegated to a small footnote in the annals of the sport's history. This is a small tragedy that the release of The Bruce Brown Golden Years Of Surf Collection 1958-1963 goes a long way towards remedying.

In addition to beautiful and often innovative photography, other highlights include Phil Edwards historically surfing Pipeline for the first time in an era when the break was both unnamed and thought unridable; Del Cannon and Kemp Aaberg surfing Sunset Beach; 12-year old Peter Johnson successfully tackling Waimea Bay; Del Cannon and Peter Johnson introducing surfing to the people of Japan by example; and exploratory group trips to Australia, Mexico, and Florida.

These 'early' Brown films, which are as inspiring and beautiful as 'The Endless Summer' in every way, capture a bygone era and lifestyle in a subtly romantic, highly evocative manner. Both visually and thematically, the films' 'amateurish,' unprofessional qualities, which make them akin to folk art, underscore Brown's vision, and perfectly capture the relatively open, casual, modest, and freedom-loving spirit of the time for the surfers who were blessed enough to follow their hearts and minds in a conventional era.

Superb and highly rewarding.

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent service, January 12, 2009

By	Susan Mitchell - See all my reviews

I bought this for my son-in-law who is an avid surfer, and he was thrilled! Everything arrived quickly and in perfect condition.

5.0 out of 5 stars Supperb movie!!!, October 12, 2008

By	Luminator (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews

I was introduced to this movie by my son. This is an excellent surfing movie. Beautiful beaches, incredible waves, outstanding sound track. A must for any collection.