Barefoot Adventure
The grandfather of surf movies, Bruce Brown introduces his third film by  showing off the microphone he would use onstage while narratingBarefoot Adventurewhen he would show it in the early 1960s in auditoriums around southern California. He notes that a tape recording of his original narration couldn't be found in his attic, so he and his son have written a new narration for the film. That seems unfortunate at first, but the necessity of coming up with new commentary allows Brown to speak wistfully of surfing days gone by. Most of the film was shot in Hawaii in 1960, when the islands were already a magnet for tourists, but visitors were mostly content to take hula lessons and lounge around their hotels. Fanatics seeking the perfect waves of Hawaii were still a relative rarity, and Brown reminisces about traveling the islands, seeking out incredible new surfing spots in rattletrap cars that could be purchased for $45. The film shot by Brown, who would encase his camera in a watertight Plexiglas box, is often gorgeous, though the footage does show some scratches and other minor flaws that speak to its authenticity. While the camera never strays too far from showing surfers riding spectacular waves, there are some quirky comedic bits, generally playing on the dangers of going barefoot or the problems surfers faced living with virtually no money. This is a beautiful document of the earliest days of the surfing craze.--Robert J. McNamara