COURTESY FRESH & SMOKED
Peter Townend poses with his then-state-of-the-art quiver of boards at Sunset Beach in 1974.
|
|
Surf pioneers
Film documents arrival of foreign surfers to the North Shore
Longtime surfers will remember the mid-1970s, when a group of brash shortboarders from Australia and South Africa came to the North Shore to make a statement. For some Hawaii locals, however, the assertion was a bit too loud. Conflicts arose between these hotshots - Wayne "Rabbit" Bartholomew, Ian Cairns, Mark Richards, Peter Townend, Shaun Tomson and Michael Tomson - and the "black shorts," a group of North Shore regulars that evolved into Da Hui. Violent beatings compelled the newcomers to hide out and purchase shotguns to defend themselves. It was Eddie Aikau who came forward to negotiate some level of peace and understanding between the two surfer camps.
‘BUSTIN' DOWN THE DOOR’
Not rated
Screens: 7:30 p.m. July 31 at both Regal Dole Cannery Stadium and on Maui at Castle Theater, Maui Arts and Cultural Center
Visit: bustindownthedoor.com
|
The drama is explained in detail by the people who lived through it in "Bustin' Down the Door," a new documentary film that describes the culture clash and radical transition the sport experienced during the era, when people began to realize that riding waves could become a profession.
The fascinating movie that premieres nationally next week weaves together recent interviews with vintage North Shore footage from the 1970s, illuminating the aspirations and struggles of those who shaped the world of modern-day surfing. The film features Hawaii state Sen. Fred Hemmings, who directed those early surf contests and helped launch the professional tour. Clyde Aikau, Eddie Rothman, Barry Kanaiaupuni and Ben Aipa also garner plenty of screen time. Actor Edward Norton - a surfer himself - narrates. Even eight-time world champion Kelly Slater pays homage to these pioneers and what they accomplished on a now-elementary single-fin board.
COURTESY FRESH & SMOKED
Shaun Tomson, right, shows some attitude before meeting rival Wayne "Rabbit" Bartholomew in a surf contest in Australia in 1975.
|
|
"It's an untold story; it really is," said Shaun Tomson, former world champion surfer and the movie's executive producer, from New York. Tomson believes that his solid reputation in the industry helped him and director Jeremy Gosch obtain honest interviews from everyone they approached, many of whom were shot on Oahu last year. "People knew they weren't going to get ambushed and they would have their say. So everyone was very forthcoming."
COURTESY FRESH & SMOKED
Mike Tomson buries the rail at Off The Wall in 1975.
|
|
The result is a film that reveals unpleasant incidents in a sensitive, objective manner.
"I think it's going to have a wonderful reception in Hawaii," said Tomson. "It gives a background to the sentiment that some local surfers had. We all came from different cultures and backgrounds, and we've tried to portray everyone's actions fairly. We weren't out there with a point we were trying to prove. We're just trying to tell a story that still has resonance today."
COURTESY FRESH & SMOKED
Peter Townend sets up the inside bowl at Sunset Beach in this undated photo, top. Wayne "Rabbit" Bartholomew goes over the top at Sunset Beach.
|
|
This is one of several projects the 52-year-old Tomson and his wife have dedicated to their son, who died in an accident while attending school in South Africa in 2006. (In his best-selling book, "The Surfer's Code: 12 Simple Lessons For Riding through Life," Tomson described it only as a schoolboy "prank gone awry.") Other ventures include a movie based on "Surfer's Code" and a dramatization of "Bustin' Down the Door."
"I hope the audience walks away uplifted, and they realize how powerful dreams can be," Tomson said. "I want them to walk away with an awareness that what you say can have harsh repercussions, so you need to be very aware of other cultures and sensitivities before you start promoting."
The movie title arose from an article Rabbit Bartholomew published in Surfer Magazine in 1975. "The fact is that when you are a young emerging rookie from Australia or Africa," he wrote, "you not only have to come through the backdoor to get invitations to the pro meets, but you have to bust the door down before they hear you knockin'."
And those surfers understood where to start. "I knew that Hawaii was a place you had to go," Tomson recalls in the film. "Without Hawaii, you were nothing."
Yet when the foreigners arrived on Oahu in 1974, they couldn't get invitations to any event and constantly appealed to Hemmings.
But by 1975, they had won everything. Their pictures graced the covers of magazines. They became famous. And the life of the professional surfer began.
"I thought it was a wonderful story that's really never been told about the crossroads of surfing and a revolution a long time ago that created the sport as it is today," said Tomson.
"We weren't trying to take over," Bartholomew explained in the movie. "We were just trying to arrive, to be part of it."
Either way, the presence of those early pioneers on Hawaiian beaches are forever entrenched in North Shore mythology.