Behind The Scenes On Big Wednesday: Tales & Trivia From The Making Of A Cult Classic

[The Wavelength Drive-In Cinema is back for 2021, bringing you a range of surf cinema, cult classics and family favourites from the clifftops of Cornwall, kicking off with Surf’s Up and Big Wednesday on Friday 16th July. Browse the full lineup and get your ticket here. Or, subscribe to Wavelength now to get free entry to a screening of your choice.] 

When it comes to authentic depictions of a surfing life, few Holywood films hold a candle to ‘78 cult classic Big Wednesday. 

Set in Malibu over a twelve-year period between ‘61 and ‘74, it centres on three friends – Jack, Leroy and Matt – following them from their hedonistic youthful days, surfing, partying and talking with their fists, through their transition to adulthood in the shadow of the Vietnam War. The film presents a vivid portrait of a specific cultural moment – both in surfing and the world at large – but equally explores themes that transcend time and place, like loss, friendship and the impact of growing up on each individual’s surfing path. It’s the artful portrayal of these hardy perennials that allows Big Wednesday to still resonate so thoroughly with wave riders over forty years on. 

Ahead of our upcoming screening, we dived deep into some of the backstories behind the production, exploring the writers, actors, surfers and lensmen who brought it to life. Here we’ll present a miscellany of facts, trivia and anecdotes from behind the scenes on Big Wednesday. 

Malibu in the early 60s, immediately post-Gidget, when some old-timers were already arguing the breaks best day were behind her. Photo: Stoner

The Seed

Unlike many Holywood surf flicks, Big Wednesday had real surfers’ fingerprints all over it. It was written by John Milius and Dennis Aaberg, who met hanging on the beach at Malibu in the late ‘50s, alongside characters like Miki Dora and Lance Carson. It was the golden era of surfing in the region, a time when surf historian Matt Warshaw says “just about everything that was progressive [in surfing] was taking place on that one beautiful beach, without a crowd.”

On the set, from left to right, Billy Hamilton, director John Milius, Peter “PT” Townend, Ian Cairns, Ray Riddle and Gary Busey.

The Man Milius 

Despite what he describes as a childhood of “juvenile delinquency,” Milius developed into an accomplished screenwriter, penning a series of hit films in which surfing often featured. Most famously, he’s responsible for creating the character Colonel Kilgore in Apocolypse Now and writing the film’s most iconic line: “Charlies don’t surf.”

Although not a veteran himself, Milius is a war and weapons enthusiast, serving for six years on the board of gun advocacy group the NRA. Nowadays, he lives inland in Connecticut, having traded trimming the waves down the ‘Bu for clay pigeon shooting and smoking cigars in his later years. 

The Origins Of The Script

Initially, Milus and Aaberg set out to write a novel that combined some of Malibu’s real characters with a grander narrative around surfing’s mythology. The story went through many iterations, including a short article by Aaberg entitled ‘No-Pants Mance’, published in Surfer Magazine in ‘74, before forming into the Big Wednesday we know today. 

The final treatment drew on many of the writers’ own experiences, with the trip to Mexico and the famous draft dodging scene reportedly both based on real events. The enforcer (played by Reb Brown) was loosely based on a Malibu icon Ray Kunze, who patrolled the lineup and looked out for Milius and Aaberg in the late ‘50s, while Jack Barlow was loosely based on Aaberg’s older brother, Kemp. 

Naming Rights

While the story’s original novel treatment was titled ‘We Are Gods’, after Warner Bros expressed an interest in making it into a film, Milius approached Surfer Magazine founder John Severson, to acquire the naming rights of his surf film Big Wednesday, released over a decade prior in ‘61. Severson’s title referenced a popular myth that posited all great surf days fall on Wednesdays. A classic of the era, live screenings of Big Wednesday loomed large in Milius’ early years and he figured the title fit perfectly with his script, representing a juxtaposition between the banality of the mid-week and the dynamism of the swell of the decade. 

(1) Peter Townend and actor William Katt. (2) PT with his signature arched bottom turn during the final sequence.

Assembling The All-Stars

Although two of the lead actors – Jan-Michael Vincent and Willliam Kat – had been surfing since childhood, Milius brought in an all-star cast of surfing talent to serve as stunt doubles, including World Champ Peter Townend (whose surfing shines throughout), Ian Cairns, Billy Hamilton, Jay Riddle and Jackie Dunn. The third lead, Gary Busey, had to learn to surf for the role and after just a few months, ended up joining his co-stars out in the lineup at 12-foot Sunset for the final scene. 

There, he sought advice from Gerry Lopez, brought in for the action-filled climax to play himself, who told him in the event of a wipeout, to go like “a dishrag in a dryer.” Sage advice, as ever, from the surfing sensei. 

As part of the sequence, the director wanted big wipeouts and snapped boards, so he roped in Aussie pro Bruce Raymond, whom he paid $200 a day – a month’s rent on the North Shore back then – to repeatedly go over the falls. The production team would send him out on partially sawed through boards, to ensure that when he reached the trough of each set wave, the board would duly shatter beneath his feet. 

(1) George Greenough surrounded by his tools of the trade and (2) with his homemade housing.

Behind The Lens

The talent behind the lens for the surfing sequences was equally prolific, with George Greenough (fresh off the back of Crystal Voyager), legendary stills photog turned filmmaker Dan Merkel and surf movie pioneer Bud Browne all overseen by Five Summer Stories co-creator Greg MacGillivray. 

Greenough arrived with his own custom-built water housing and proceeded to take apart the 100 grand film camera provided to him by the production to fit it inside. “Milius was flipping out,” remembers a chuckling Peter Townend in an interview with Surfline. “George had broken it up into pieces and [stuffed it into] that yellow fibreglass thing.” He would then either place the big homemade housing on his shoulder while sitting on a board in the channel or balance it on his surf mat. 

“It was a full circus going on at all times,” recalls Art Brewer, who didn’t have an official role, but was often invited to hang out on the set. “I mean, you had George Greenough in his black and white Highway Patrol car, burning down the dirt roads and then coming into the lot doing donuts…It was more like a party than a working situation, and for me it was just like another day at the beach. It was work that you got to have fun and got paid for, which was rare back then.”

Being a lifelong surfer himself, Jan-Michael Vincent had no trouble pulling off an authentic-looking knee paddle. Photo via www.bearsurfboards.eu

On-Location In El Salvador

Filming for the action sequences began with a two-month stint in El Salvador, with the right point at El Sunzal serving as a nice empty stand-in for Malibu. 

“With our encyclopedic knowledge of the world’s waves, we decided there were a couple of surf points we could use there,” Milius recalls in an interview with Sports Illustrated. “But we simply didn’t take into account things like, oh, sharks, civil war and dysentery.”

By most accounts, the trip was a disaster. Cameras were stolen and the whole crew got sick, but in the end, it was an encounter with a local militia that really sent them packing. 

“One day this El Salvadoran militia comes to visit our beach set,” continues Milius. “We had a helicopter [for filming] and all these fit surfers with really short haircuts, so these guys figured we were CIA, U.S. military or something. We had to convince them otherwise. Hell, we offered to smoke dope in front of them just to prove we were surfers. And just when they were finally convinced, out of the water comes one of our surfers, Dan Merkel, with his skin suit on and a knife strapped to his leg. Those [guerrillas] looked at him and absolutely freaked. They were sure this guy was a SEAL!””

In the end, the trip set the production back half a million dollars and yielded just four minutes of useable footage. 

On-Location At The Ranch

Following on from their El Salvadoran debacle, the production set up shop at Hollister Ranch, the privately-owned 8.5 mile coastal stretch of glistening point breaks that sits to the north of LA. Although access has since opened up a little, back then it was only residents and boat owning day-trippers who could surf along the stretch. “What was amazing was to see how many waves went by without anyone surfing them,” recalls Art Brewer. “When they were shooting you weren’t allowed in the water. You had to have permission from the director, John Milius [to paddle out]. There was perfect longboard waves coming through, a little groomed south swell at Cojo Point, and while the surfers managed to get out and score a few waves, it was the extras who had to suffer. They were getting $20 a day plus a whole lot of sunburn to watch perfect waves go unridden.”

(1) The central trio heading out for the final showdown. (2) On the surf trip to Mexico, reportedly inspired by true events.

The Big Reveal

Ahead of the release, Hollywood was abuzz with talk of Big Wednesday’s impending success. So much so in fact, that Milius’ friends Steven Spielberg and George Lucas famously agreed to trade profit percentage points on their forthcoming films Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Star Wars with the movie’s box office takings. But, when Big Wednesday opened in the spring of ‘79, it tanked. Theories behind the failure are wide-ranging; the scars of Vietnam were still too raw, there was too much fighting, too much binge drinking and, with the transition brought on by the shortboard revolution complete, the surfing audience viewed the longboard-centric surf scenes as passé. 

It was only with the film’s home video release in the early 80s that it began to acquire a cult following, gaining more credibility and adulation with each year that passed. 

By 1998, following a 20th anniversary showing at the Newport Film Fesival, the turnaround in opinion appeared to be complete. The Los Angeles Times reported that it was “one of the very few to really capture the surfing life.”

Surf journalist Paul Gross concurred, writing in The Surfers Journal on the film’s 25th anniversary that even its harshest critics had to “acknowledge that Big Wednesday remains true to the sport.” 

While Surfer Magazine went one further in their modern appraisal bestowing what may be the ultimate compliment, declaring simply that “Big Wednesday makes you proud to be a surfer.” 

Join us in a beautiful clifftop location overlooking Watergate Bay in West Cornwall on July 16th for a drive-in screening of the film. Click here to buy a ticket, or subscribe now for free entry.