“Morning of the Earth” Woollen Mat courtesy of Vintage Surf and Skate Emporium Anna Bay, photo Gary Crockett
As far as movies go, this one stands up fair and square as a life changer. For Albe Falzon, making it was a personal dream realised and for most of us watching it in the early 1970s there was now a new world to be dreamed into life. Scruffy surfer mobs crowded in rank club houses, school halls and cinemas didn’t always know where the shimmering green banks ridden by Nat Young, Chris Brock, Baddy Treloar and Terry Fitzgerald were breaking or where the rootsy country action took place, although most would have guessed the mesmerising Michael Peterson series was shot at old Kirra and of course Rory Russell’s curtain closer tube rides were archetypal Pipeline. The signature shot however, with ex-US big wave thriller Rusty Miller and Sydney teenager Steve Cooney on the rocks at Uluwatu in Bali silhouetted in a burning orb, lit a hungry fire of escape in many, many hearts. And for many it still burns.