During the winter of 2006/2007 Shaun Tomson was on the North Shore, working on a documentary. He had a crew around him a lot of the time, ate at Lele’s a lot and seemed to be having a good time. When anyone asked him what the doco was about, he said, “The seventies.”

At the Pipe Masters that winter, Shaun surfed with Cody Graham, Michael and Derek Ho, Tony Moniz and Dane Kealoha in a Legends Heat, before the final. After the heat, Shaun came into the media area up at the scaffolding to watch the final with John Philbin and Sam George. Shaun had just broken his nose out at Backdoor – the first time he had ever done that – but he was stoked. The final was Cory Lopez, Rob Machado, Andy Irons and Kelly Slater. Pipe was firing both ways, but the goofyfoots were soon a sideshow. This was the Pipe Masters where Kelly Slater and Andy Irons went after each other like naked Celts, and Andy came out on top. During the final, Shaun leaned up against the wood window, watching quietly and smiling to himself. He was jazzed he had done well in the Legends heat, amused he had broken his nose. But there was something else in that smile, as he watched two regularfoots dominate Pipe and put on one of the best finals in the history of surfing.

A little over a year later Shaun unveiled his documentary in Santa Barbara, at the Arlington theater, on a dark and stormy night. The weather was lousy, it was Sunday night, but that didn’t keep hundreds of people from showing up to get a first look at a documentary about three years in the middle 70s that changed surfing forever.

There were more people than tickets, the VIP list got all screwed up, Kelly Slater and the director’s mother barely got their tickets and another couple hundred people nearly busted down the theater doors to see Bustin’ Down the Door.

The crowd was thick by 6:00 and as it got close to 7:00, things were getting a little hectic. And then the faces arrived: The Five or Six Horsemen of the modern surf industry. The Godfathers of performance surfing: Shaun Tomson, Ian Cairns, Peter Townend, Michael Tomson, Rabbit Bartholomew, Mark Richards. They looked good, they looked like rock stars on a reunion tour. They were rock stars. That was one of the points of the documentary.

This is a documentary about an era some call the Free Ride generation. This history of what came out of the southern ocean in the middle 1970s and what they did in Hawaii is gospel to surfers of a certain age. But 30 years later, a generation and a half of surfers have benefited from the performance and professional pioneering of these surfers, and Shaun and others thought this new generation should know the gory details – warts and all.

Bustin’ Down the Door details the blood, sweat and fears of Shaun the Prawn, MR, Mohammed Bugs, Kanga, PT and MT and their small group of merry Australian and South African surfers who took clues from Bowie and Ali and shook up the world with their aggressive surfing in Hawaiian waves – and their aggressive promotion in the surfing media.

On screen, speaking into the camera in Hawaii last winter, Shaun Tomson wonders about his own motivation, why he was so competitive and explains it had something to do with his father losing an arm in a vicious shark attack. Ernest Thompson was a top swimmer with Olympic potential, but the shark attack derailed that ambition. Shaun Tomson’s surfing ambition was considered suspect in South Africa as he was growing up and Tomson believes he traveled to Hawaii in 1974 with everything to prove.

Rabbit comes from a broken home, and he has an emotional moment when he describes having to go out and steal $20 to feed his mother and four sisters.

Mark Richards came from a solid home and a loving mum and pop, but he still had something to prove and his family gave him a year to do it.

The years of living dangerously began in 1974, when all those surfers first came to Hawaii, young, ambitious, unknown. There were only a few contests then and very little room for outsiders. All the surfers had their personal and practical reasons for doing well, and they all make it clear they were willing to die in pursuit of greatness.

Bustin’ Down the Door is narrated by the familiar voice of Edward Norton – following in the footsteps of Jan Michael Vincent and Sean Penn – but the real storytelling is done by the principals along with Reno Abellira, Barry Kanaiaupuni, Bernie Baker, Dan Merkel, Randy Rarick, Fred Hemmings, Eddie Rothman, Clyde Aikau, David Gilovich, Phil Jarratt and other guys who were around at the time, on either side of the conflict or right in the middle of it.

The stories have some moments. The ambition of all these surfers was compressed into one slot in the Smirnoff contest in 1975. They wall wanted it, but Fred Hemmings gave the nod to Mark Richards, who didn’t have the $50 entry fee. PT did have the money and he got a round of applause that bordered on an ovation when he explained how he sacrificed $50 to let MR take a slot they all desperately wanted.

MR then takes up the story, explaining how that Smirnoff was held in enormous surf at Waimea, in conditions that made more than a few surfers question “Dead Ahead Fred” Hemmings’ decisions to run it. MR was jazzed to get fourth in his six-man heat, because that meant he didn’t have to paddle out again at nearly closing out Waimea.

But MR did good at that contest, and while it was one for all and all for one with these renegades, Shaun admits to no small amount of jealousy. They were all fueled by pride and need and 20-something ambition and they came to Hawaii. MR got a foot in the door, and they came back to Hawaii the next winter ready to pillage and plunder.

All of these stories of ambition and wipeouts and great sessions and big dreams lead into the winter of 1975/1976, when the Bronzed Aussies and the South Africans dominated Hawaiian surfing: MR won both Sunset events, and Shaun was the first regularfoot to win the Pipeline Masters.

“If they had just done well and kept quiet, everything would have been great,” Randy Rarick said. But Rabbit and Ian made a near-fatal mistake by mouthing off in the surfing media, claiming dominance over Hawaiian surfing and making a series of agro statements that made the volcanoes grumble.

Rabbit and Ian managed to insult an entire island chain of Hawaiians, and the following winter, the aloha matt was whisked away.

Bustin’ Down the Door doesn’t back down from detailing the truly dangerous reception that Rabbit and Ian received when they went back to Hawaii for the winter of 1976/1977. Rabbit was confronted at Sunset, and threatened and beat up and lost teeth. Ian (and Shaun) reveal they both went to town to buy shotguns. Ian slept with a baseball bat under his pillow, and a loaded shotgun in his car: “I knew that if they ever came after me like that again, I would fight my way to my car and kill one of the bastards,” Ian says. “That is how bad it was.”

Bernie Baker and Randy Rarick give the local haole side of the conflict, while Eddie Rothman in shades explains the origins of Da Hui He’e Nalu Black Shorts, and why the brash trumpeting of the Aussies was such a slap in the face to Hawaiian pride.

Ian and Rabbit prove they were not afraid to die by staying in Hawaii when there were serious threats against them. Rabbit describes as “surreal” being taken by Eddie Aikau to a meeting in a convention hall at a big hotel, where 150 Hawaiian surfers read them the riot act.

Nothing any of these guys did out surfing was as ballsy as staying around Hawaii with an entire island turned against them, and to watch this part of the movie is to understand why Shaun, Rabbit, PT, Ian, Michael Tomson and Rabbit are on the Mount Rushmore of professional surfing and modern surfing.

Bustin’ Down the Door is a professional effort, put together with wit and quality by director Jeremy Gosch. Phil Jarrat wrote the narration and Matt Warshaw did the research.

The soundtrack includes Fame by David Bowie and Paint It Black by the Rolling Stones – both songs perfect placed, and that must have cost some shekelim. The rest of the soundtrack is true to the era – although there was no Robin Trower. At the Arlington, the sound quality managed to mangle even Shaun’s perfect elocution, but for the most part BDTD is a quality effort and makes you wonder why it didn’t premiere at Sundance (where Stacy and Sam are killing it with their gang-doc Made in America.)

The Free Ride era of 1974 – 1976 were the years of living dangerously – by land and sea – and Bustin Down the Door details them beautifully. It’s easy to tell a good story when there is a good story to tell, and Bustin’ Down the Door is going to be an eye-opener to a new generation and a half of surfers who have no clue of what the Founding Fathers went through.

Bustin’ Down the Door ends with Shaun getting emotional about the things he went through then, and the things he went through lately. There is a tribute to Shaun’s son Matthew at the end.

To watch Bustin’ Down the Door is to understand Shaun’s quiet smile at the Pipe Masters last winter, as he watched Kelly and Andy have at each other at perfect Pipe. Shaun was the first regularfoot to win the Pipe Masters, and his influence is still resonating today. Rabbit and PT were the original Coolie Kids, and their offspring are winning world titles and giving Kelly and Andy a run for it.

Shaun lost a son to tragedy, but he has many others out there, all following the path he and his Merry Men blazed 30 years ago, crossing the equator to change the world.