The Thousands

Albie Falzon’s Morning of The Earth (1972) is sometimes described as the greatest surf movie ever made. Other times it is described by my uncle as “that hippie boogaloo benny rubbish.” So, you see, it’s not for everyone. But we all get a chance to give it a chance this week because it’s screening at the Regent Theatre and the Dromana Drive-In, with live performances of the soundtrack.

Morning of the Earth documented an interesting time in Australian surfing – Falzon and his friends defined their lives in opposition to the ‘commercial’ wave riding business emerging in the late ’60s and early ’70s. They were also leading characters in the ‘short board revolution’ – the shift from slow turns and fluid movements to long ‘tube rides’, rail edge ‘cutbacks’ and other quick maneuvers on 5’9″ boards, which Australians basically invented and subsequently ruled at.

The groundbreaking thing about the film was (and is) that it’s edited without dialogue – or captions for locations – or anything other than psychedelic lens flare, solarisation, slow, optically reprinted sequences and hypnotic footage of Michael Peterson, Mark Warren, Nat Young and other Australian surfers travelling about the place. Shaping their own boards, growing their own food and – as Lars Nilson of Texas’s Alamo Drafthouse puts it – “climbing Everests of blue glass and being borne down by the very hand of God.”

G. Wayne Thomas’s soundtrack is the only dialogue really – and it has almost outshone the film itself in the intervening years. Non-stop freak-folk, prog rock and pop by Tamam Shud, John J. Francis, Brian Cadd, Thomas himself and others – a legendary moment in Australian music because even though it got no radio airplay it “went gold” in 1972. Some of these musicians – including Brian Cadd, as well as Mike Rudd from Spectrum – will be playing the soundtrack live at the screenings.

In conclusion, as Mr Nilson says, “If you are bored by this, and many will be, you’re probably not high enough.” Meet me behind the screen, I’ll be wearing the Jeff Spicoli tank top.