Joan Didion's short review of Ride the Wild Surf ran in the November 1, 1964, issue of Vogue.

I have recently fallen under the spell of teen surfing movies, an enthusiasm I should probably try to pass off as sociological. In fact, they amuse me. Of the current crop, I am pleased to report that 

 is a first-rate surfer, with Fabian, Tab Hunter, and Jim Mitchum bobbing about the Hawaiian ocean with such exotic and wonderful names as Waimea Bay and the Banzai Pipeline. While waiting for the big waves to blow in off the Aleutians, the boys, of course, have some byplay with the starlets (there are always starlets in these things, and not very happy ones, either), whose role it is to make dainty motions when the boys fall off their boards (or, in the vernacular, get "wiped out") and to murmur such nothings as "But you can't spend your entire life surfing, Jody." (Let me note in passing the real sexlessness and extreme passivity all these girls, who presumably embody virtues admired by the audience. Things would not look bright for Young America from, say, Betty Friedan's point of view.) Happily, however, all plot is incidental; the point is the surf, and there are few other opportunities in a bleak city Autumn to spend forty unbroken minutes watching immense translucent combers rise and curl in the sunlight.

JOAN DIDION REVIEWS "RIDE THE WILD SURF" FOR VOGUE (1964)

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