George Greenough is one surfing’s most influential figures. Photos: YouTube//Screenshot
To many surfers, the exploratory days of the 1970s were surfing’s halcyon days. Surfing was booming, yes, but there were still many waves undiscovered and lineups weren’t packed. Surfing was about discovery. It was about searching for waves. It was a little more feral than it is now. There are plenty of surfers from that era who became legends, and Nat Young and George Greenough are certainly two of them. Here, we see them surfing the Gold Coast in the early 1970s, courtesy of the Australian and New Zealand Surf Film Archive.
The Surf Film Archive has put in a lot of work over the last few years. They diligently found, scanned, and restored many of Australia and New Zealand’s lost surf films, adding commentary from the filmmakers and the surfers when they can.
“All the footage you will see was originally shot on film, and has been scanned from the highest possible copy we could find, sometimes even the camera reels,” the creators write. “Everything is scanned and shared with permission by the original filmmakers or their families. Most of this footage has rarely been seen in 50 years, some has never been screened to the public before.”
They do it in hopes of keeping future generations aware of the history of the places they surf.
“Until the rise of home video in the ’80s, there was no way to see surf on screen except at local surf film nights,” the Surf Film Archive explains. “Filmmakers raced around Australia and the world capturing the moments they knew would excite the crowd. Their screenings packed out venues and their images inspired hundreds of thousands of Australians and helped shape Australian culture as we know it.”
This particular clip is from a film called Our Day In The Sun. It was directed by David E. Allen and released in 1972, and it shows a variety of different surfboards used in a variety of different waves. George Greenough is featured, and his wave-riding genius is on full display as he rides a mat and a kneeboard in ways so far ahead of his time. It’s a look back at an era that we’d all be lucky to experience.
