John Grissim's article on Bill Delaney's Free Ride originally ran as a chapter in Grissim's 1982 book Pure Stoke. This version has been shortened and slightly edited.

It's a warm spring California night and the auditorium at San Rafael High is packed with five hundred very noisy, impatient movie-goers aged anywhere from ten to forty-five (but averaging nineteen) and there's still a hundred more lined up outside. They'll get in somehow, eager to pay three bucks a pop for standing room only, because Bud Browne's classic feature 

 is about to roll and, well, what we have here is a full-house of over-amped wave worshipers who are tube-starved and totally STOKED! At least two Frisbees sail more or less continuously over a sea of tanned faces, blond hair, and aloha shirts, but when a similarly clad young man in his midtwenties walks on stage, apparently to explain the fifteen-minute delay, the din jumps twenty-five decibels as two toilet paper streamers and several water balloons sail from the balcony. Failing to be heard, he shrugs lamely, fends off a Frisbee, and leaves the stage. Mere seconds before chaos takes over, the house lights dim, the screen flickers, and abruptly the entire wall is filled with a slow-motion shot of Gerry Lopez slotting into the cavernous tube of a perfectly backlit Pipeline.

For the next ten minutes the auditorium is filled with nonstop yelling and hooting, a roar that drowns out the heavy-rock soundtrack. This tumultuous pitch will continue with occasional intervals of moderate quiescence for the next hour and a half. Enough adrenaline is released to turn a morgue into a disco. The outburst is ecstatic, a tumultuous cry of release as six hundred pairs of eyes drink in the screen. In a form of tribal celebration, the audience is surfing that film, making every take-off, carving every bottom turn, and living for a few moments in the world of pure stoke. Who knows? This phenomenon could be unique. Other gatherings—rock concerts and revival meetings, to name two examples—may generate similar fervor, but it is hard to conceive any equaling, much less exceeding, the sheer intensity of passion displayed by audiences that flock to surf movies in either hemisphere. To find such behavior in the spring of 1981, in an era when so many kinds of entertainment compete for the box office dollar, is little short of extraordinary.

One reason for the enduring appeal of surf movies—even when they're bad—is that surfing translates beautifully into film, particularly when shot in slow motion. Not only does a celluloid rendering of a wave and a rider invite a vicarious identification, but one is able to see clearly the subtleties of positioning and movement which are often missed when observed during their actual execution, particularly on fast-breaking waves. Apart from that, the movies are fun and escapist, providing an opportunity for a fairly crazed ritual gathering of a still largely misunderstood subculture, whose members share a specialized knowledge (and matching language) about which the rest of the world knows little and cares less. To be sure, behavior at surf movies occasionally gets out of hand. Some years ago at a San Francisco screening, several stoned delinquent devotees watched the action while wearing over their heads plastic bags smeared on the inside with model airplane glue. (They were reportedly carried out on stretchers.) During that same show, someone threw a half-filled gallon jug of Gallo burgundy at a breaking Waimea tube, ripping a huge hole in the screen. The terrified exhibitor was obliged to continue the show or risk triggering a riot. Australian audiences have their own rowdy tradition, dating back to 1960 when young patrons tore up Sydney's Anzac Hall following a screening of a John Severson epic. The ban against surf movies at the Hall is still in effect.

 is a durable example of the best of the genre, drawing upon his twenty-plus years of filmmaking. There were vintage shots of Buzzy Trent, Greg Noll, and other madmen tackling North Shore monsters; old footage of Phil Edwards waltzing on southern California peaks; up and coming hotties from Hawaii; and all of it interspersed with comedy skits, sight gags, horrendous wipeouts, sunsets, pretty girls in wet T-shirts, and a lot of rock 'n' roll. Never mind that some portions don't hang together well, or that the updated footage makes for a few jerky transitions. Browne's cinematic trademark is a pervasive happy-go-lucky feeling, a go-for-it optimism, and a sense of humor—and innocence—that defines what one skit in 

 called "The Stoked Life." It grabs you early and keeps you locked in and entertained for the duration.

Browne was well launched on his career as a surf cinematographer before 

 first hit the screen in the late '50s. There are other filmmakers of equal stature who have turned out classics. Bruce Brown, who cut his teeth playing taped music and providing his own narration to his movies on the high school auditorium circuit, turned the world on to surfing in 1966 with 

, the only surf movie ever to be distributed nationwide in 35mm. John Severson (who founded 

 magazine) made and exhibited numerous excellent films. In the early '70s, Greg McGillivray and Jim Freeman came up with 

, a brilliant feature that set new standards for surf movie quality and professionalism, in the process becoming the highest-grossing 16mm sports feature ever made. Also on the list of important films are two by Australians Albert Falzon and David Elfick: 

 (the Bali adventure chronicling the discovery of Uluwatu) and 

, about the surfing of George Greenough. Lastly, Greenough himself contributed a gem of a film, 

, made in innocence, edited with intelligence, and containing the first inside-looking-out tube footage—a precursor of things to come in water cinematography.

By the mid-'70s there was a notable absence of any new surf filmmakers who could lay claim, as worthy successors, to the legacy left by the pioneers (almost all of whom had by then moved on to other endeavors). Instead, audiences made do with a handful of less skillfully produced films, most of them underbudgeted, amateurish efforts shot in Super-8, enlarged to 16mm, and mixed with rock music pinched from record albums. The reason for this dearth of quality films was the lack of technical know-how and the soaring costs of travel and production—mostly the latter.

It was against this background of bleak prospects that the movie 

 premiered in Hawaii in 1977. Made by Bill Delaney (with extensive in-the-water photography by Dan Merkel), the film was an immediate hit and represented not only a quantum leap forward in capturing the feel of surfing but equaled, and in some areas far exceeded, the level of professionalism achieved by previous surf movies.

 establishes its credentials as a state-of-the-art film right from the opening seconds with a breathtaking shot of Shaun Tomson riding Off the Wall in slow motion, advancing toward the camera, which is in the tube, not shooting from the shoulder. As Shaun nears, the camera pulls back into the wall and continues panning underwater, now on the board's fin as it passes by. The accompanying soundtrack is the dramatic piano and soaring guitar of Pablo Cruise performing "Zero to Sixty in Five," and the overall effect is astonishing.

Sparsely narrated by actor Jan Michael Vincent, 

 moves along briskly. There are primo rides throughout, but the emphasis is on Wayne "Rabbit" Bartholomew and Shaun Tomson at Off the Wall, Mark Richards at Sunset, and all three at monster fifteen-foot Pipeline. The soundtrack is excellent, as is the film's pace, editing, lighting, and overall look. Meanwhile, the lack of plot, according to Bill Delaney, was intentional, although it was not a decision he took lightly. "I felt the movie could have been improved had there been more of a documentary storyline, but that would have made it less successful with surfing audiences. It would bring them down to hear surfers talking too much about surfing. I think they feel like it's them up there on the wave. As they watch the guy, they think, 'I could have done that' or 'That's just where I would have done that' or 'Next year I'll be able to do that.'"

Delaney caught some incredibly lucky breaks in the production and release of 

 First, in choosing to concentrate on Shaun and Rabbit, he found a pair of innovative competitors who, in 1975, were just starting to make their mark. Both became world champions—Shaun in 1978 and Rabbit in 1979. Third-billed Mark Richards, meanwhile, won the title in 1980, '81, and '82. 

 gave audiences worldwide their first look at these three phenomenal surfers. Also, the spectacular footage at Off the Wall, a right-breaking wave right just down the beach from Pipeline, was shot at a time when OTW was just beginning to be recognized as a first-rate break. 

 was, in a manner of speaking, OTW's coming-out party. And lastly, the water photography by Man Mountain Dan Merkel, done under physically demanding and risky conditions, was mind-blowing. The result is a film that was remarkably timely when it hit the circuit in 1977, one, also, that is intelligent but not too reverent, entertaining without being slapstick, and respectful of a much-maligned pastime that deserves respect.

And just imagine, all this from a guy who dropped out of surfing in 1967 to get into LSD and photography.

Bill alluded to this period in his past one afternoon over several bottles of wine in his comfortable home in Ventura, California. Bill is an Irishman in his mid-thirties with red-brown hair and who bears a strong resemblance to another Irishman, Van Morrison, except he is taller and more easygoing.

He had no shortage of anecdotes from his 

 experience. Those he might have forgotten were recalled by his wife, Victoria. Tori (as friends call her) has a collegiate background in film, speaks fluent Italian, and worked closely with her husband during all phases of the project. She is also a woman of rare beauty who carries it unpretentiously.

Bill's early interest in photography helped him land admission to the prestigious Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, but after just eight months of study he was drafted into the army. Following a two-year hitch, he attended a local junior college, then landed a job taking stills for 

 magazines. By the early '70s, he had made a couple of short Super-8 films on motorcycle races, as well as an artsy eight-minute film on Ireland, all of which encouraged him to think about a feature on some aspect of outdoor adventure sports. In 1975 he thought making a film about surfing, hang gliding, and skiing (probable title: 

), but soon decided to concentrate on surfing alone. "I had more affinity for surfing. Even though I'd been out of touch for a while, I'd grown up surfing, shared houses with surfers, gone to Mexico a few times, and had worked at the Ventura Surf Shop."

Meanwhile, Bill had found a financial backer in Allan Hughes, a friend who had done well in real estate and now wanted to invest in a film. Hughes wrote a check for $10,000, the start-up money for what the Delaneys' figured would be a $35,000 film project.

Another stroke of good fortune was to link up with veteran surfing photographer Dan Merkel. A tough, muscular lensman with a reputation for being quick-tempered, stubborn, outspoken, incredibly gutsy, hard-working, innovative, and dedicated to his craft, Merkel was perfect for the project, particularly its demands for in-the-water shooting. Parenthetically, Merkel, who has more than a passing interest in weaponry and martial arts, can walk through an airport carrying a full kit of camera gear, and look less a photographer than a full-on, high-tech, hell-bent soldier of fortune whom no one is about to mess with.

"When Dan asked me where I wanted to film, I said, 'Wherever the best surfers are. I want to go first class all the way.' He said, 'Well, then you have to go to Australia.'"

Bill, Tori, and Dan arrived in Sydney in April 1975, watched the Surfabout contest, then flew to Queensland to film Rabbit Bartholomew, the Gold Coast's rising star. Bill spent a lot of time studying the kid's moves.

"I love to watch Rabbit," he told me. "He's the Charlie Chaplin of surfing who comes up with all these interesting little moves. There's a real spontaneity there, almost as if he seems to be changing his mind in the middle of a turn."

It was in Australia that Bill first learned about the vagaries of waves, weather, and the hassles of making a surfing movie: "It didn't seem funny at the time but it seemed like every decision I made was the wrong one. Just as I went to one part of Australia the surf got good in another. Or on the days we went to Kodak to check the film, the surf would be fantastic. On top of that Merkel would tend to exaggerate how good things were because he loves to tell you how you missed it—and I was really susceptible to that. But Merkel is by far the hardest working surf photographer who ever existed. He never misses a thing."

Then it was on to Bali where, again, conditions were fickle. They eventually got perfect surf, put it took six long weeks.

After that, a return to California in August where everybody rested and recharged, then a trek to the North shore, land of the heavy hitters. Once there, Bill quickly realized just how much Hawaii was Dan Merkel's turf: "Every year, Dan is always the first guy on the North Shore. He knows more than anybody about the weather, the swell, and how quickly conditions can change. In fact, the surfers all look for Merkel's car because they know he'll always be parked where the best waves are. The guy is totally gung-ho. Every morning before sunrise we were up and out checking out the surf. We learned that from him. You get up early and if it's a disaster you take the day off. Except we were so gung-ho we never took a day off."

It was in Hawaii during the winter season of 1975-76 that Bill and Dan got their most spectacular footage—at Sunset, Off the Wall, Pipeline, and Honolua Bay. To capture the drama in the water, Merkel used a Milliken high-speed camera (originally designed for filming explosions in Vietnam), fitted with a 12mm wide-angle Angénieux lens and mounted in a custom-built plexiglass housing. Altogether, the camera rig weighed twenty pounds.

"To get those Off the Wall shots Dan would wear fins and tread water to keep the camera out of the water. When the tube threw out he'd stop kicking to allow himself and the camera to sink underwater, then he'd pivot down there to keep following the rider. It was pretty dangerous. He went over the falls a few times. But Dan always had complete control over when he wanted to go out for water shots. I never directed him. I'd just set up the camera and f-stop and say, 'Whenever you want to do it, do it.'"

Hawaii also provided opportunities for filming two of the world's best: Mark Richards and Shaun Tomson. Ironically, Delaney was at first put off by MR's oddball knock-kneed stance and long trailing arms, all of which earned him the nickname the Wounded Gull.

"Everybody thought he looked bad. I did, too, at first and I didn't want to film him, especially on small waves. But he's lost most of that awkwardness and now does some beautiful stuff. I think his peculiar stance and moves are what make it possible for him to do those powerful swinging turns. His off-the-lips go higher because his rigid suspension goes right to his bones. It's tough to knock that guy off a surfboard. He's stuck on it so well."

While Rabbit seemed Chaplinesque and MR a high-torque Wounded Gull, Shaun the Prawn in 1975 could not be characterized by catchy descriptives. He was simply pushing the limits of tuberiding further than they had ever been pushed. Delaney again:

"Shaun never took the time to do something nonfunctional, like Rabbit's little moves. Shaun was against poseur moves like the soul arch. He'd be thinking, 'Why waste time doing that when there must be someplace inside the tube where I can pull off a turn and still make it out?' That's why his tube riding got so fantastic. Then, too, all those guys will push each other out in the water. It's friendly but they're all tough competitors. Like, I remember one time watching Shaun and MR make the drop together at Off the Wall. Shaun was in front and he waited just long enough to make absolutely sure Richards wouldn't be able to make the bottom turn. And you can see it in Richards' waiting and waiting until he has to either plow into Shaun or go straight. Shaun just faded him all the way into the pit."

's final sequence was filmed on one incredible day when Pipeline was breaking perfectly at twelve to fifteen feet. Incredible because Delaney practically had the place to himself: "It had been breaking for ten days straight while we had returned to the Mainland for an equipment change, and during that time everybody had gotten plenty of perfect Pipeline. So the day we arrive everybody's standing around on the beach saying, 'Oh, I dunno if I'll get my cameras out or not.' And I'm almost shouting, 'Get your cameras out, goddamn, what're you waiting for!'"

Bill and Tori returned to Ventura with thirty hours of film, set up an editing room in their home, and began the long and exacting work of paring down the footage to a ninety-minute feature. The task took six months and at times made Bill a bit bonkers: "There were thousands of waves and I knew all of them by heart. At night, until I fell asleep, all I could see on the back of my eyeballs were the different waves I was working on. I couldn't conjure up anything else in my mind."

Then there was the need for a good title. Tori remembers: "During the Hawaii filming I spent a lot of very boring time in the car watching the equipment while Bill and Dan checked the surf. So I began a huge list of possible titles, about a hundred in all, which included 'Free Ride.' Bill took the list and said, 'I'm sorry, I don't see anything here.' Then a couple of months later he says, 'Hey, I think I've got it: 

’ I said, 'Boy, that sounds familiar, where's my list?' And there it was."

As the film neared the rough-cut stage, the Delaneys turned their attention to the soundtrack. The first big decision was to not bootleg music (as most surf movie makers had done previously), but instead get permission. This proved difficult, even with checkbooks at the ready:

"The big labels like RCA and Capitol were impossible," Bill recalls. "They couldn't be bothered. Finally, Tori went into a music store and, largely by looking at album covers, picked out LPs by Pablo Cruise, Joan Armatrading, and Gallagher and Lyle—all of whom were on A&M. But even with A&M we had trouble at first. No one would return our phone calls. So finally we just crashed the gate one day, snuck past the guard, grabbed some guy and asked him to direct us to so-and-so's office."

So-and-so wasn't in, but the Delaneys did meet A&M exec Joe Sill who had just returned from two weeks in Hawaii and had heard someone was supposed to be showing rushes from a surfing movie. He canceled his afternoon appointments and took the Delaneys to a screening room on the lot.

"Joe really got into the movie," Bill recalls. "After he'd seen the footage he said, 'Don't talk to anybody else. Let me do it.' So for two weeks or so, right after Christmas, when hardly anybody was around to bother him, Joe devoted almost all his time to us, pulling tracks directly off the master recordings from the A&M vault."

The Delaneys wound up spending around $20,000 for music rights. Neither had regrets about the expenditure. On the other hand, the total cost of making 

 had mushroomed from the original estimate of $35,000 to somewhere close to $85,000. Their friend Allan Hughes had put up $50,000; the remainder was in the form of final payments due soon for music rights, studio mixing, theater rentals, equipment, and an ambitious ad campaign. If the Delaneys were to ever recoup their costs (at $3 a ticket) and make even a modest profit, they had only one option: distribute and show the movie themselves. The decision meant a grueling tour up and down the West Coast, living out of a VW camper bus, and showing the film night after night at dozens of high school auditoriums and theaters. The silver lining to this gloomy cloud was that 

 opened to rave reviews, was immediately pronounced a classic, and played to packed houses. Tori remembers her own reactions:

"The very night the movie opened we owed something like $15,000 immediately, a lot of it to radio stations for ads. So as soon as that money came into the box office, we had to get it and get moving. It was really depressing because you sat there each night looking at all this money, thousands and thousands of dollars, and at the end of the year we'd say, 'Where did it all go? I mean, the books say we made some money but we don't have any.'"

The audience reactions were typical—thunderous howling and screaming—with one minor exception during the premier in Hawaii. Bill was on hand:

"I'd heard that the kids there don't yell much, that they're very quiet unless someone else gets them started. So I took Dan Merkel to a seat down in front and said, 'You can listen to what the kids say about the water photography.' So here we are around all these Hawaiian kids and the first minute goes by and no one's making any noise. Dan leans over and whispers, 'Don't they hoot or anything?' I said, 'Wait till Shaun gets this next tube, and then I'll get 'em going for you.' So Shaun gets into this amazing tube and I go, 

' And the place went crazy. For the next ten minutes, any move that any surfer made had the kids screaming."

Then there was the ugly episode at the Brentwood Theatre. Tori recalls:

"The promotion had been great, all six hundred seats were sold out and before the show everybody was stoked. The theater had a huge built-in 16mm projector and a projectionist, so everything should have been fine. Then five minutes into the screening, the projector screwed up and there was a riot. I had to go down there in front of those beasts and say sorry. And they were yelling, 'What the fuck's going on? What is this shit, Grandma? I want my money back!' Everybody came clamoring out to the box office, really pissed off. We refunded everyone's money, even to people who had thrown away their ticket stubs. We ended up giving out more money than we'd taken in because some kids were finding stubs in the garbage and cashing them in."

Bill adds: "The Santa Cruz Civic on a Saturday night is brutal. Because the whole town is drunk and completely out of hand and you're dealing with fifteen hundred very rowdy people. And all you have is a couple of friends to help with security. The police won't come near the place—'If you see blood, let us know.' But Tori got really good at dealing with the people who complained now and then about the three-dollar ticket price. She'd say, 'Well I happen to know that the people who made this movie haven't earned any money from it yet!' Then later it was, 'Okay, if you don't want to pay, step aside and let these other people buy tickets and we'll talk later.' And finally with anyone who got heavy she'd say, 'Fuck you, go out and make your own surf movie!'"

Clearly, nobody, be they kids or theater managers, messed with Grandma.

Some of the theater managers were just as bad. Tori again:

"If you don't keep an eye out, a lot of them will rip you off. Like at one theater we'd collect the tickets at the door and the manager would surreptitiously take a handful of those tickets and give them to the girl in the box office, tell her to resell them, and pocket the extra money. Or they'll resell the tickets from the first show, or sell their own tickets. They're good at it. I mean most theater managers will admit that's how they survive."

It's difficult to envision Bill and Tori schlepping up and down the coast, leafleting high schools in the mornings, spending the remainder of the day postering the neighborhoods, then each night enduring the hassle of the crowds and the screening. Tori admits the sound of the movie itself would get to her: "It'd make me sick because of what it represented. It meant me sitting in the booth selling tickets and running around watching exits."

To do the California circuit (by far the most lucrative) took the Delaneys three months. Together with two months of preparation and another month of post-circuit accounting work, a complete run took six months. They made a total of three West Coast runs, in 1977, '78, and '79. Somewhere during the third run 

 broke even, and Bill and Tori, after five years of full-time commitment to the project, finally began putting money in their own bank account. For the record, 

 played the third time around to packed, enthusiastic houses whose patrons were just as stoked as they were the first time they saw the movie.

 has toured at least twice on the East Coast, in Japan, Australia, and even Peru. A bootleg soundtrack album is reportedly still selling briskly in Japan. And both Bill Delaney and Dan Merkel have landed excellent commercial assignments as a result of their showcase work in the film.

 had grossed in excess of $500,000 worldwide, making it one of the most successful surfing films ever made. No less significant is that the Delaneys paid everybody back and handled the entire project with a lot of style, integrity, shrewdness, and humor.

 the last surfing movie? Bill paused a moment before responding. "I'm not sure. I do know that to do it again today would cost about a quarter of a million dollars, given inflation and the soaring costs of everything. But then, most films, including surfing movies, lose money. And as long as there are people in other parts of the industry willing to lose money, then there'll always be people willing to lose it in surfing. It depends on how important that kind of movie is to them."

I remember Tori telling of an encounter she had with a fourteen-year-old gremmie at a Los Angeles theater who seemed genuinely puzzled that he had to shell out three bucks for a ticket to 

. "Why," he asked, "do I have to pay almost as much for this movie as I did for 

"Because we made this movie for you," she replied. "Just for you. Nobody else really cares."

The kid smiled and handed her three dollars.

“MAKING ‘FREE RIDE’,” BY JOHN GRISSIM (1982)

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