''Skaterdater'' is a 1965 American short student film. It was produced by Marshal Backlar, and written and directed by

Noel Black Noel Black (June 30, 1937 – July 5, 2014) was an American film and television director, screenwriter, and producer. Black was born in Chicago, Illinois. He won awards at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival for an 18-minute short subject filmed in ...

Summary

The film tells a story with no dialogue. The group of boy skaters are suddenly at a point when one of the boys sees a young girl, and becomes interested in her. This causes a rift with a second boy, who challenges him to a skating duel that goes down a hilly street. The first boy loses; however, he ends up with the girl, and shortly, a few other girls are seen and become interested in the boys, too. The

surf rock Surf music (also known as surf rock, surf pop, or surf guitar) is a genre of rock music associated with surf culture, particularly as found in Southern California. It was especially popular from 1958 to 1964 in two major forms. The first is inst ...

-esque soundtrack was composed by

Mike Curb Michael Curb (born December 24, 1944) is an American politician, record executive, and philanthropist who served as the 42nd Lieutenant Governor of California, lieutenant governor of California from 1979 to 1983. He is the founder of Curb Recor ...

and

Nick Venet Nick Venet (born Nikolas Kostantinos Venetoulis, December 3, 1936 – January 2, 1998) was an American record producer, who began his career at age 19 with World Pacific Jazz. He is best known for signing The Beach Boys to Capitol Records and p ...

with

Davie Allan Davie Allan is an American musician, best known for his work on soundtracks to various teen and biker movies in the 1960s. Allan's backing band is almost always the Arrows (i.e., Davie Allan & the Arrows), although the Arrows have never had a ...

and the Arrows playing "Skaterdater Rock".

Production

The skateboarders were members of the neighborhood Imperial Skateboard Club from

Torrance, California Torrance is a coastal city in the Los Angeles metropolitan area located in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, United States. The city is part of what is known as the South Bay (Los Angeles County), South Bay region of the metropolitan ...

. Their names are

Gary Hill Gary Hill (born April 4, 1951) is an American artist who lives and works in Seattle, Washington. Often viewed as one of the foundational artists of new media art, based on the single-channel work and video- and sound-based installations of the 1 ...

, Gregg Carroll, Mike Mel, Bill McKaig, Gary Jennings, Bruce McKaig and Rick Anderson. Melissa Mallory played the girl of the interest of one of the boy skaters. Most of the action shots were taken in Torrance,

Redondo Beach Redondo Beach (Spanish for ) is a coastal city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, located in the South Bay region of the Greater Los Angeles area. It is one of three adjacent beach cities along the southern portion of Santa Mo ...

, and Palos Verdes Estates. The final shot was Averill Park in San Pedro.

Reception and legacy

It was the first film on skateboarding. It was distributed theatrically, both domestically and internationally, by United Artists. It was reviewed extensively by media outlets including ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' magazine. It was the winner of the

Palme d'Or The (; ) is the highest prize awarded to the director of the Best Feature Film of the Official Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festiv ...

for Best Short Film at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival. It was also nominated for an

Academy Award The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...

in the Best Short Subject category. First prizes in international film festivals included Moscow and Venice. ''Skaterdater'' has had lasting cultural relevance in the film industry. It has been the subject of scholarly articles on

cinematography Cinematography () is the art of motion picture (and more recently, electronic video camera) photography. Cinematographers use a lens (optics), lens to focus reflected light from objects into a real image that is transferred to some image sen ...

, and entrepreneur

Steve Mariotti Steven John Mariotti (August 14, 1953 – October 20, 2024) was an American educator, activist, and businessman. He was the founder and president (1988–2005) of the nonprofit Network For Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), and the author of boo ...

included it in a 2017 list of "15 films every entrepreneur must see". The Academy Film Archive preserved ''Skaterdater'' in 2010.

References

External links

*
Skaterdater
' (entire film) * {{Short Film Palme d'Or Winners 1965 short films 1960s sports films 1965 films Films set in Los Angeles Films shot in Los Angeles Films without speech Short Film Palme d'Or winners Skateboarding videos American student films 1960s English-language films English-language short films English-language sports films

Summary

Production

Reception and legacy

See also

References

External links