Whether you surf or don’t surf, it’s likely you’ve seen Bruce Brown’s film, The Endless Summer. It was a beautiful thing, that movie; as much about the wonders of travel and friendship and discovery as it was about surfing. The Endless Summer was, and continues to be, one of the most beloved documentaries of all time. The story behind how the film came to be, however, is just as interesting as the film itself. And that story is the focus of a new project called Birth of the Endless Summer: Discovery of Cape St. Francis.
The Endless Summer, released in 1966, follows Robert August and Mike Hynson on a surf trip around the globe. It could be seen as a catalyst of sorts, one that kicked off a movement of vagabond surf travel that’s alive and well today. The title came from a very simple idea: with enough time and money, one could follow the summer as it moved through the hemispheres. Back and forth, following the sun from place to place, creating a life that exists solely in the summer months.
Hynson and August traveled to New Zealand, Australia, Tahiti, Hawaii, Senegal, Nigeria, and South Africa, just to name a few. Bruce Brown’s narration is full of humor and occasionally off-colored statements that likely wouldn’t have made the cut in today’s cultural climate. The film’s climactic scene has become legendary: Mike Hynson and Robert August climb a dune in coastal South Africa to look out on a perfect right-hand pointbreak with nobody out. It was a place called Cape St. Francis.
Birth of The Endless Summer: Discovery of Cape St. Francis, as the name implies, has a heavy focus on that particular scene. Brown’s film was largely inspired by the travels of California surf pioneer Dick Metz, who traversed the globe for waves well before it was a part of popular culture. From 1958-1961, he jumped trains, hopped steamships, and eventually found himself at Cape St. Francis.
He told Bruce Brown about it, who was living in San Clemente, Calif. and working as a lifeguard at the time. Brown also had a side hustle at the legendary Dale Velzy’s surf shop. Velzy gave Brown his start, charging 25 cents to show Brown’s original films. This is where the idea for Endless Summer really got rolling. That tiny ball would eventually turn into an unstoppable juggernaut that birthed an entire culture. The idea for Birth of The Endless Summer came to director Richard Yelland in 2018, when he also had a chance meeting with Metz.
“I jumped off on this project from my work on 12 Miles North – meeting Dick Metz, hearing his story and how he had a hand in the major events that shaped modern surfing as we know it,” explains Yelland, who grew up in Laguna Beach, 20 minutes up the Pacific Coast Highway from San Clemente. “Bruce had just passed away when I started the project in early 2018. So I was inspired to do this film in his honor. Ultimately, I made it to ensure that this particular series of events would not be lost to time.”
In 2018, though, Metz was in his nineties, a lifetime of adventure in the rearview mirror. “I came to the realization that the story behind Bruce’s iconic film just might be more amazing than the original,” Yelland continued. “But I needed to make sure I filmed it while our lead character, Dick, was still alive.” And now, four years later, the film is complete.
Dick Metz, Hawaii, 1965. In the middle of a lifetime full of adventure. Photo: Birth of the Endless Summer
Until now, Metz’s role in the iconic film hasn’t been told in a meaningful way. It’s known, certainly, but it hasn’t been featured on a platform accessible to all who know and love Bruce Brown’s film. Birth of the Endless Summer follows Metz as he goes back to South Africa to retrace the steps of that original journey. Metz is the founder of San Clemente’s Surfing Heritage and Culture Center (SHACC), which is arguably the world’s most important archive of surfing artifacts, surfboards, memorabilia, and scholarly works.
Birth of the Endless Summer is full of interviews with some of surfing’s most important characters: Dick Metz, or course, but also Hobie Alter, Robert August, Mike Hysnon, Bruce Brown, Dana Brown, Joyce Hoffman, Walter and Indie Hoffman, Greg MacGillivray, Nat Young, Mikey February, Rob Machado, Kelly Slater, and more.
Birth of the Endless Summer premiered at the Newport Beach Film Festival in late October. The festival, if you haven’t had the privilege of attending, is a curated collection of films from around the world – where the work of storytellers is celebrated. After 22 years, it’s been recognized as one of the largest lifestyle film festivals in the United States. “This film originated over 60 years ago near where I grew up,” Yelland said. “It’s such a personal story for me and to world premiere at such an esteemed festival like Newport Beach to a hometown crowd is a dream come true.”
Opening night was a raging success, Yelland says. The house was packed and the film’s reception was about as good as it could have been. The following show was sold-out, too, and by all accounts Birth of the Endless Summer is a must-watch documentary about one of the most important films in the history of surfing. If you missed it, though, don’t worry — it’s headlining at the Coast Film Festival in Laguna Beach on November 10th and on the 14th at the Hobie shop in Laguna, which, fittingly, is part of the same surf-rich region where the story first started.
Purchase tickets to Birth of The Endless Summer: Discovery of St. Francis here.
