I admit it: I’m old enough to remember the sensation caused by Gidget, the Sandra Dee movie about a pert teenager who takes up surfing and finds love on the beach at Malibu. Not that I was ever fond of big waves myself. (A snooty male cousin from New York City—discovering that I neither surfed nor rode a motor scooter—immediately wrote me off as a poor excuse for a California girl.) Nonetheless, Gidget and all those beach party movies that followed gave me vicarious golden memories of sun and sand.
Today’s beach movies roam farther afield. I’ve just returned from a preview screening of the direct-to-video Blue Crush 2, which goes all the way to South Africa to show surfers in their native habitat. The predictable but endearing story involves a troubled Beverly Hills teen who flies to Durban, South Africa to visit the old surfing haunts of her free-spirited mother. She stumbles into a friendly group of local surf bums, and things (mostly good things) start happening.
Blue Crush 2 is, surprisingly, a bit of a throwback to the Sixties: a paean to the joys of communal living. The residents of the film’s surfside shantytown—a ragtag collection of joyous young people—could have come from the cast of Hair, but without the politics. There’s even an old bus painted in rainbow colors that rolls out on a surfer’s version of the Magical Mystery Tour. Another surprise is the use the film makes of its South African setting. In the world of Blue Crush 2, racial tensions and social inequities are virtually nil. But our glimpses of local sights are a feast for the eyes. (Kids playing exotic instruments! Elephants lumbering past our California girl as she heads for the beach! Fantastically gorgeous shorelines and waterfalls!) Moreover, these surfers come in all shapes and colors, with our blonde heroine quickly becoming Best Friends Forever with a black African surfer chick who easily matches her in beauty and charm. The South African tourist board must surely be pleased.
Like the original Blue Crush, this is a female empowerment movie with an obvious appeal for young girls. When Gidget discovered surfing, she was breaking into a man’s world: the guys at the beach ultimately accepted her as a cute and talented mascot. Here, however, the ladies truly rock the waves, and no one questions their right to be there. It’s also refreshing to see a hardbodies-in-bikinis flick in which sexual attraction is not the main point. The wisps of romance here don’t go beyond a few soulful kisses. Surf’s up—that’s the real point.
Blue Crush 2 was produced and directed by the indefatigable Mike Elliott, who as Concorde-New Horizons head of production in the Nineties made scores of genre films with titles like Body Chemistry II and Bloodfist IV. (He also played many a cameo role. I’ll never forget him as the driver of a chicken truck who falls prey to the monster in Carnosaur. Those twitching cowboy boots sticking out from under the disabled truck—-Oscar material, for sure.) Blue Crush 2 is certainly a change of pace. Instead of bloodshed and gratuitous sex, it’s got ocean spray and enormous curling waves. It’s so cool and refreshing that I wanted to towel off after the final fadeout.
