Big Wednesday

"I don't want to be a star. Have my picture in magazines, have a bunch of kids looking up to me. I'm a drunk, Bear, a screw up. I just surf because it's good to go out and ride with your friends. I don't even have that anyone."

"Why don't you get back to Burbank!"

"He ain't no hodad Squidlips!"

"Mexico! Surfboards! Guns!"

"Bear: That's the lemon next to the pie."

"Narrator, Fly: Stay casual, Barlow."

"It's a surfing How Green Was My Valley the loss of an aristocracy, the end of an era, the passing of a more innocent time to a more corrupt and complex one-all growing up is the passing of innocence. It's based on the lives of three friends ten years ago. It's about their friendship, and the value of friendship. I don't think that kids today have the same kind of values that these people had then; I don't see movies being made about that kind of thing. This movie is about friendship: surfing is just the background. It's about love of a place, love of a time, love of your human contacts, and the loss of those things. It's the most personal film I'll probably ever make, and I figured I ought to do it now, before I get too far away from it. At least half the people who participated are dead now. The attrition rate among surfers is very high. A lot of them died in Vietnam and OD'd on dope."

"When I did Big Wednesday my first impressions were that I was going to do this coming-of-age story with Arthurian overtones about surfers that nobody took seriously, their troubled lives made larger than life by their experience with the sea. And that’s what the movie is. It never strayed from that. There was a lot of pressure to make it more like Animal House, but the movie has a huge following now because it did have loftier ambitions. It wasn’t just a story about somebody trying to ride the biggest wave or something. That’s not enough."

"Three friends. Twelve Turbulent Years. And One Day We All Must Face."

"A day will come that is like no other... and nothing that happens after will ever be the same."

"A story of three friends growing up in the sixties; of ten years filled with parties; weddings and uncertainties; and of the day we must all face..."

"Jan-Michael Vincent - Matt Johnson"

"William Katt - Jack Barlowe"

"Gary Busey - Leroy "The Masochist" Smith"

"Patti D'Arbanville - Sally"

"Lee Purcell - Peggy Gordon"

"Sam Melville - Bear"

"Ceila Kay - The Bear's bride"

"Darrell Fetty - Waxer"

"Gerry Lopez - Himself"

"Hank Worden - Shopping Cart"

"Joe Spinell - Psychologist"

"Steve Kanaly - Sally's Husband"

"Barbara Hale - Mrs. Barlow"

"Fran Ryan - Lucy"

"Dennis Aaberg - Slick"

"Reb Brown - Enforcer"

"Arthur Rosenberg - Official"

"Janet Julian - Party girl"

"Charlene Tilton - Party girl"

"Frank McRae - Sergeant"

"Perry Lang - Tall kid"

"Michael Talbott - Hog"

"Robert Englund - Narrator, Fly"

"Keith Davis - Ostrich"