1965 skateboard movie: Skaterdater
Jim says:
Today has to be one of the happiest days of my life. I've searched for this film (Skaterdater, 1965) numerous times on the net for years, and finally found that the beginning has been uploaded to YouTube:Link | Full movie on Google Video (18 minutes)I first saw this in 1967, when I was first grade, as the opening feature for a Saturday matinee in my Midwestern hometown. It's not exaggerating to say that this film influenced a lot of things in my life. First off, it started my lifelong love of surf guitar. It's remarkable that this theme has been running through my head for forty years, though I'd only seen it that one time! It also got me into skateboarding (steel wheels, baby!), and why I'll always love California and cute girls in striped shirts.
Check out the kid barefoot nosewalking on that deathplank! And dig those awesome windbreakers the riders are wearing! Seriously, nothing has ever been better than this.
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And if I remember correctly, the climax is a big downhill race between the two rival skaters to impress the girl!
what's up with that old lady throwing gravel at the skateboarders? Sheesh! And how he showed her a thing or two with his headstand! Take that mean lady!
I love the icy glares from the love interest "Bike Girl."
for reasons i never quite understood, my junior high screened this movie for the whole school every year. i had completely forgotten about the film until i came across the bombora's cover of the title song a few years back...
in philly theres this guy jay schwarts who runs a travelling film program called secret cinema. its awesome.
http://www.thesecretcinema.com/
i saw skater dater a few years ago at a screening he hosted in a bar. it was rad
random thoughts:
1) wow, STEEL wheels? geez, in my day (late 1970s), we had thankfully progressed to better materials. those things must've been LOUD. no wonder everyone around them was distracted!
2) the mean lady with the gravel: plus ca change....
3) that headstand trick was kickass!
4) when they rode their boards under the truck, i was thinking, "hey, i used to ride like that sometimes!" -- but then they smoothly got up while still moving, and i thought, "day-ummm, i could NEVER do that, though." props!
5) that bike girl shoulda watched where she was going. she could have hurt someone!
The title on the film is "Skaterdater", not "Skater Dater". Yes, I am a nerd.
The full movie is on Google Video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3273044523822545532&q=SKATER+DATER&total=673&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
The soundtrack can be downloaded here:
http://recordbrother.typepad.com/imagesilike/2005/12/ya_skater_dater.html
Wow, I saw this in the fifth grade; for some reason the teacher thought this would be a good classroom film. I had totally forgotten until now. What a great movie.
I grew up near where they shot this short, the South Bay area of Los Angeles. I recognize the Rolling Hills Theater, and maybe Malaga Cove, where the fountain was. I got kicked out of that theater for throwing Milk Duds during the Saturday Morning kids movie. I was just a little younger than these hooligans.
Love the bare feet.
Nice call Jim ,truly awesome ,charming and beautiful
PS steel wheels? that seriously old school!
Sweet. The guy getting the shave at around 3:20 looks weirdly like Commander Data.
we used to ride boards like this and boy did we think we were cool. to old even for a big board now...
that was 10-15 yrs before my late-70s prime, but what great vintage SoCal footage... made my day :)
One of the kids is Garry Hill , the video artist.
Also, those are clay wheels , but with loose ball bearings , hence the noise.
...and those kids had some pretty rad street style for 42 years ago!
Yeah, what's up with the bare feet?! I love 'em, too! But, seriously, were the clay wheels THAT slow back in the day? Hmmm, wait, memory retrieval processing... processing... processsing... Ah, yes, I used to tool around with barefeet, too, and it only took one incident to teach me. Didn't learn to wear shoes, just not to fall again. Man, I haven't thought of that day in years!!! Yup, I always knew today's kids with their five-inch-soled shoes were poseurs.
Skaterdater has an imdb page! Bicycle Girl, cool.
I can only imagine how fifth-graders reacted to the water-squirting boobies of the Malaga Cove fountain.
I HAD a board just like those! It was my first, and yes the clay wheels were loud as hell. Also, it was a good thing those bearings kept the speed down cuz it was tough to carve hard on those wheels: they would just side slip at a whim.
And did you notice the board was laminated 1x1s? I used to hand so hard off the side to carve that eventually the side pieces just dropped off until all that was left was the 3 center strips that the trucks were screwed to. Not enough to ride very well, so we screwed down a monster board and made a rad mega-downhill cruiser! Damn I used to have fun on that board. Never knew how lame it was until I saw the first production plastic board with kick tail: The Continental!! Woot, woot!
How fun to see this movie again! Back in 1965 my two brothers and I were in the Rolling Hills Theater at our local strip mall watching a matinee of Thunderball. Being skateboarders it was great to see this short before the show and even greater to see them skating outside the very same theater we were watching them in. The look on our faces! Thanks for the post!
There was another skateboarding flick that came out around that time, maybe a couple of years later. It was made for TV. A little more trick-heavy and without the puppy love. I don't remember too much about it, other than it got me to save up for a skateboard.
Maybe this has been discussed already but in 1966, Canadian director Claude Jutra directed another skateboarding flick called Rouli-Roulant (English title: The Devil's Toy). It's about kids in Montréal who get their boards taken away by a cop.
Some but not much dialogue in this one either. A sweet song by Geneviève Bujold at the end too. And it starts off like Naked City in a lot of ways.
Part one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZzMKy0o_ow
Part two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQmZQV72TIg
I remember seeing this movie when I was a kid! and never forgot it either. Thanks for posting. Had a totally cool 5th grade teacher who did extraordinary things with his kids. Whoa! Thanks!
Wow!!!!! I think of this movie, still, from time to time. I grew up in so Cal in very early 70's and we were shown this movie in school every time it rained and we couldn't go outside for recess. As a girl, it sort of confused me, especially the part where the boys were staring at the fountains breasts, always made me uncomfortable.