Overlooked Movies: The Endless Summer

This is another one that's really not overlooked.  I'm only mentioning it because there's a story behind my seeing it.

Once upon a time, long ago, in a town called Austin, Judy and I were a couple of young whippersnappers.  I'd read about this movie and wanted to see it.  We lived near the campus of The University of Texas, where I was a grad student and where Judy worked in the Computations Center.  The movie was showing in a new theater in what we thought of as far south Austin on a street called Ben White Boulevard.  We had no idea where that even was.  We had to get out a city map (in those ancient days, maps were on fiendlishly folded paper; they were easy to unfold but not so easy to refold).  We located the theater and planned our trip as if we were going to another planet.

We found the theater in a little shopping mall and saw the film.  I loved the idea of the movie, that if you had enough money, you could travel around the world and follow the summer.  That way the summer would never end.  I thought the movie was beautifully shot and some of the surfing sequences were really exciting.  Judy, on the other hand, hated the movie and was bored stiff.  She referred to it as "the endless movie."  If you mention it to her now, she'd probably say the same thing.  One thing's for sure, though.  She's never forgotten it.  I'm not sure if she's ever forgiven me for taking her to see it.

Now, Ben White Boulevard is a major highway.  The theater closed long ago.  The last time I checked, it was a place where people could go and play laser tag.