This has a reputation as one of the better surf pictures. It doesn't start too well, with the trio of Fabian, Tab Hunter and Peter Brown not really believable as friends, and the surf footage suffering from some awkward back projection and intercutting between location and studio stuff. (There is a lot of location footage but it appears none of the leads went to Hawaii - so lots of doubles, some of it quite ingenious). But as the film goes on it improves - the three love stories all work, the players having charisma with each other.
Straight-laced Brown (a likeable actor, with a long list of undistinguished credits), hooks up with kookie Eden (who even beats him up as a meet cute - which partially makes up for the fact that for the rest of the film the girls watch the action sitting on towels). Working class Hunter hooks up with local Hawaiian Susan Hart (a very winning performance, without the stiffness that sometimes marked her AIP efforts) whose mother hates surfers. Chip on his shoulder Fabian (a sub-Elvis performance with even a semi-Elvis snarl, but for all that not bad) romances the enchanting Shelley Fabares - they have a particularly effective scene in a deserted shack after a rain storm.
Jim Mitchum displays some charisma as a rival surfer and Aussie swimmer Murray Rose plays a sympathetic Aussie surfer called "Swag" (he gets a few lines, too). The surfing footage becomes more impressive the bigger the waves; the final surfing contest goes on a bit (though it did establish the "must conquer the big wave" template later used in Blue Crush). Why not play the Jan and Dean title song til the end?
Some interesting trivia from Tom Lisanti's book on beach movies
- Jan and Dean, then riding high with "Surf City", were meant to support Fabian - but after their friend kidnapped Frank Sinatra Jnr (partly using funds unknowingly loaned by Dean) they were kicked off the film and replaced with Hunter and Brown
- the producers, the Napoleons, went and shot two and half months of surf footage in Hawaii in late 1963/early 1964 then pitched the project to Coumbia who gave the go-ahead
- Art Napoloeon was the original director but shooting became a mess - the cast and crew complained and Napoleon was sacked as director - production was shut down and he was replaced by Don Taylor. Production later had to cease because of an impending tidal wave (which ended up missing the island).
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