“Surfing the 50’s” - 1994
By the early 1990s, Bud was still pushing the envelope, hang gliding, bungy jumping and bodyboarding in river rapids. “It was thrilling!” he recalled of his escapades in New Zealand. “Recently I got my old surf mat out of the attic to try some more of the same thing here in the States… Sometimes I bodysurf and I still swim several times a week to keep in shape.”
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In 1994, Bud edited and re-released the best material from the eight surf films he produced between 1953 and 1960. It took a year and a half, off and on, to put together.
Surfing the 50’s is 70 minutes of all color film on video tape, narrated by Peter Cole and John Kelly, “two old time surf experts,” declared Bud. The video gives an historical background to surfing, touching on how the sport has been passed on from one generation to another; as Peter Cole put it, “keeping the good of the past alive.”
Surfing the 50’s also features: a look at the San Onofre tradition; Australian water sports; tandem surfing; catamarans; surfing at Waimea for the first time (1957); huge Makaha surf; women surf pioneers; classic Phil Edwards, Dewey Weber, Duke Kahanamoku, Mickey Dora, George Downing, Buzzy Trent and many more great surfers of the 1950s.
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“One day early in 1993,” Bud wrote, “I realized I had all this pristine surf film on the shelf that no one had seen in more than thirty years, and that it would be of value as a historical record of an important time in the early years of surfing...”
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Bud said the video’s music track consists of “Music contributed through an ad in the
Surfer magazine.” People sent him music from all over the world. “I must have gotten 35 or 40 audio cassettes. Out of those, I used 23 individual selections.”
84 This “voluntary music came from surf-oriented groups and individuals who asked only to be a part of the video,”
85 “plus other music I obtained.”
86 “I am grateful for their contributions,” Bud said, “as the music played a very important role.”
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“The available footage I had to select from consisted of both original and often projected print film, which picked up scratches over the years. I thought viewers would prefer to see the best footage of the fifties rather than the limited film that survived with no imperfections.”
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