By Lee Pfeiffer
Scorpion has released the rather obscure 1969 surfing documentary Follow Me on DVD. Clearly inspired by the similarly-themed, but highly acclaimed 1966 film The Endless Summer, this is a rather slap-dash effort that was the brainchild of director/producer Gene McCabe, whose professional credits largely began and ended with this project. The film traces the exploits of three young American surfers (Mary Lou McGinnis, Claude Codgen and Bob Purvey) as they travel the globe, ostensibly on a meager budget in order to find the most challenging waves and surfing locations. I say "ostensibly" because the average back packer doesn't travel with a film crew, which makes the frequent references to their having to scrimp ring a bit hollow. It's like those contestants on Survivor who we are supposed to believe are in danger of starving to death, even with a crew of dozens filming their every move. Nevertheless, taken in the context of its era and the fact that most people were not world travelers in 1969, Follow Me does provide all-too-brief tours of exotic locations ranging including Hong Kong, Japan, Ceylon, India, Morocco and Hawaii. However, the film's short running time (a scant 79 minutes) precludes the viewer from getting anything other than a very superficial look at the locales and cultures. Similarly, the three leads are just window dressing whose individual personalities never come through.
The film does provide some interesting sequences, such as surfing in a gigantic Tokyo wave pool and the final scenes filmed in Hawaii are impressively shot. Not so with the land-based scenes, in which the camera crew can't resist the incessant use of zoom lenses. (Many times the technique is employed to showcase the bust-lines of bikini-clad teens.) The film also utilizes a very annoying series of bubblegum rock songs performed by Dino, Desi and Billy that make the music of The Archies sound cutting-edge. (They actually released a soundtrack album at the time!) The print used for the DVD transfer varies in quality, with some sequences suffering from color fade and night-time scenes often look like an inkwell, though the surfing scenes retain their luster. An original trailer is included as a bonus extra. Despite its flaws, Follow Me has a goofy, innocent charm about it and Scorpion is to be commended for continuing to make the effort to release films such as these which would otherwise have been completely forgotten.
(As with most Scorpion releases, this is a region free DVD and can be played on any international DVD unit)
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