re : "THE FANTASTIC PLASTIC MACHINE " [movie]

General Discussion
1

…i got this dvd this week …1969 …by eric and lowell blum [?who?]

some fiji footage , new zealand footage , and sydney and lennox footage

nat young

midget farrelly

ted spencer

rob conneeley

russell hughes

bob mctavish

john monie

steve bigler

[a young] mike purpus

skip frye

margo godfrey

allan byrne

george greenough RIPPING lennox

interesting the contrast between the american longboards of the time , and the vee bottom shorter boards being ridden at the contest at long reef and palm beach

and mctavish and nat’s commentary on board design is interesting , too …

… so … has anyone else seen / got this dvd ??

cheers

ben

the commmentary is funny at times , unintentionally so …

plus , nat ‘waxing lyrical’ , 1969 style … lol …seems SO dated now .

2

Chipfin!

Glad to see you’re keeping busy AND getting some relaxation time in. ‘Fantastic Plastic’ is a great film, I got the new issue of that and ‘Innermost Limits’- brilliant stuff. I love how ‘FP’ just goes mad when they hit Australia and hand the film over to Nat, Bob, Witzig etc. The first bit is some goofy surfari stuff, then it turns psychedelic. Needless to say the surfing is epic the whole way through though- totally cool seeing the very young Alan Byrne at work. I love those transformation era films- the 2 mentioned above, ‘Morning’, ‘Crystal Voyager’ and others of that ilk. Total naive silliness really, but so cool seeing surfing being taken somewhere new.

3

Hi Chip

I have been trying to buy this film for ages . Where did you get it from pray tell . Only seen bits on YouTube but read about it in various surfer biographies and articles .Always fascinated me as the intention of the movie changed once they were influenced by what was going on in Aussie

Cheers

MpCutback

4
Quote:

Hi Chip

I have been trying to buy this film for ages . Where did you get it from pray tell . Only seen bits on YouTube but read about it in various surfer biographies and articles .Always fascinated me as the intention of the movie changed once they were influenced by what was going on in Aussie

Cheers

MpCutback

try here - http://www.youtube.com/user/surfstyley

http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=surfstyley

6

Skip I have a video you can copy.

7

Seeing that movie was a defining moment in my life and sent me down “the path less traveled”.

I was a 17 year old kid just out of high school. Riding home-made plywood kneeboards the last of which was “shaped” with an outline similar to Velo from a pic in a surfing mag. I was living in the Hollywood Hills and hangin out and surfing in San Clemente.

Went to see THE FANTASTIC PLASTIC MACHINE on opening night in Hollywood in June 1969. I actually had a surfboard in the back of my car I was going to buy. I had gotten frustrated with the limitations of my plywood kneeboards and had tried a friends standup board. Decided to buy it and take up surfing.

While standing in line to get into the movie a blond-haired surfer dude came out of the side door of the theater and walked right up to me like he knew me. He asked if my friend and I wanted to get in for free. Sure we said. So he walked us in the side door, down accross the stage and sat us down front row center. We said thanks and he walked away. It wasn’t until we saw Greenough in the film that we realized that he was the guy that let us in! Fate.

when I saw him riding circles around the standup surfers I knew what I would be riding from then on. I drove down to Greek Surfboards and bought a spoon the next day(the Greek was actually making decent spoons at the time), drove to San Clemente and returned the surfboard and have ridden spoons ever since.

I found it on DVD this year on eBay. Great to see it again after almost 40 years.

8

Thank you!

My previous post is to Starr, he’s got the DVD’s on ebay. Check him out, he’s deep

9
Quote:

Hi Chip

I have been trying to buy this film for ages . Where did you get it from pray tell . Only seen bits on YouTube but read about it in various surfer biographies and articles .Always fascinated me as the intention of the movie changed once they were influenced by what was going on in Aussie

Cheers

MpCutback

hiya ‘mp’ [lol]

dick hoole on the north coast of new south wales australia

surf classics , i think his film copying company is called , from memory [sorry , i don’t have the dvd in front of me at the moment]

hopefully a “google search” under dick hoole [barry hoole] might give the exact address .

my local longboard shop guy ordered it in for me .

hope this helps ?

cheers mite

ben

10

Chip,

The highlight of the film for me was when Nat and Co. took their V-Bottoms to Maui. To me that Honolua session was the defining moment that ushered in the shortboard revolution. I don’t think anyone, including Brewer and the Hawaiians, were drawing lines like how Nat and McTavish were. I remember opening up a Surfer magazine to see the spread of Nat tracking across a back lit H-Bay wall and thinking that a change was about to take place.