The footage in this little remix is lifted from 

 knockoff from 1969. The howling surf track is "Escape" by the Mustangs, a college town garage band from what was then called Madras (now Chennai), who were thrilling local clubgoers at the same time the 

 crew was in town. (The Indian psychedelic scene that flowered around that time, by the way, was small but robust. Here's a 

 actually had some things working in its favor, starting with glam-tomboy surfer Mary Lou McGinnis, who costars with Claude Codgen and Bob Purvey. 

, doesn't have a plot—open the atlas, draw a zig-zagging line from LAX to a half-dozen exotic ports of call, end up in Hawaii, and done. Surf movie heavyweights Greg MacGillivray and Jim Freeman did most of the 

 photography. The soundtrack, lush and sunny and I'm guessing performed by the Wrecking Crew, was written by Stu Phillips, who swung a pretty big one back then, producing or arranging tracks for everyone from Nina Simone to The Electric Prunes.

I personally love the movie because it takes place in the middle of those hot few months when boards went short. So in the beginning Claude Codgen is hanging ten on his signature CC Rider tank, and by the end he's whipping a seven-foot "vee-bottom midget" with an acid-splash gloss coat.

 was ignored by the critics and flatlined at the box office. Partly from bad luck—the gang didn't find much surf, and the whole project looked dated by 1969—but mostly because 

 was a category-killing product. Hell, Bruce Brown himself hit the same wall with 

, have a look at the opener. That's Bob Purvey hopping in the Corvette, Claude Codgen behind the boat, and Mary Lou Drummy in a set-to-stun yellow sundress atop the LAX Theme Building.

 biggest problem? It was never going to live up to that opening.

"FOLLOW ME" TO THE SEVENTH PAGODA: INDIA, 1968

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