[Sam] The Bear, Sam Melville (BIG WEDNESDAY REVIEW & MULTIMEDIA)

[DoReEgon@aol.com]

By the way ... has anyone checked out the Big Wednesday (SAM) wallpapers, I 
recently made, at: http://sam.mkbmemorial.com ?

-Doreen


BIG WEDNESDAY: A REVIEW BY NORA SALISBURY

Big Wednesday is the penultimate surf flick ... forget all the 
Beach-Blanket-Bingo-type films, with their fake blue screen surf scenes ... 
here you have a whole bunch of guys who really did surf in their spare time, 
so just watching their form in the sport is art in itself.  

Some of William Katt's positions as he walks the board look like he's either 
posing for a hood ornament or auditioning for the next "Matrix" sequel.  

Robert Englund, who narrates and has a couple brief scenes, used to live on 
PCH (The Pacific Coast Highway) and the back of his pad literally hung over 
the water.  I used to joke with him that he could just chuck his board out 
the window, jump out after it and paddle out ... I wouldn't be surprised if 
he actually did.  

Some of the funniest scenes in Big Wednesday involve the surfers' ploys to 
get out of Selective Service ... Robert stumbling around with a white cane, 
Gary Busey going for the "too nuts even for the Army" routine, and 
Jan-Michael Vincent employing method acting to play a gimp, letting a buddy 
crack him on the leg with a cane.  Such devotion to surf!  In retrospect, 
some of Jan-Michael's scenes where he's hung over, sleeping on the beach like 
a bum, are kinda spooky, if not prophetic.  

But the real performance to watch is Sam Melville's.  He so poignantly 
portrays the life of the "Old Man of the Sea" (geez, he was only 42, and 
looked damn fine at that!), a man who once rode the crest of every wave in 
life, who had a mystical understanding of the weather and the ocean and how 
they affected the surf.  

Now he's on the downhill part of the journey, using his skill to make the 
boards that the new breed rides to higher pinnacles of surfing Zen.  You can 
taste his bitterness when he tells the boys the pier his shack sits on is 
condemned, and he can't make their boards anymore (The BEAR brand created in 
this movie still flourishes today).  

The unbridled joy as he watches their triumphant communion with the waves on 
Big Wednesday, which he predicted, is as bright in his eyes as the tears it 
inspires in ours.  The willingness with which he passes the torch to them is 
evident in his gruff yet smiling reply to a newbie who asks if Bear's a 
surfer, too ... 

"No, I'm just a garbageman!"  

Bear is the keystone character, the cohesive element, the hub of the wheel.  
The boys all look to him for direction as the children, who invented 
skateboards in an attempt to ride like their heroes, look to them.  

It is the great circle of surf, and some of the pros of the time are in the 
film as themselves, blurring the line between fact and act.  

The cinematography is gorgeous ... a camera was actually mounted on the front 
of a board to give you that you-are-there POV, and in all the footage I've 
seen to date, I've never seen any get that deep inside the tube.  Gnarly, 
man!  

If you've never seen this flick, you should check it out sometime, it's a 
film anyone can enjoy, dudes and dudettes alike.