Lee Purcell

Julie Richman (Deborah Foreman) is a typical "Valley girl" teenager (living in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, California) who seems to have it all: good looks, popularity, and a handsome Valley dude boyfriend, named Tommy (Michael Bowen), but she is having second thoughts about her relationship with the arrogant and selfish Tommy. At the end of a shopping trip to the local mall with her friends, Loryn (Elizabeth Daily), Stacey (Heidi Holicker), and Suzi Brent (Michelle Meyrink), Julie runs into Tommy and breaks up with him. Later that day at the beach, Julie trades shy glances with a young man in the distance. That night, at a party at Suzi's house, Julie locks eyes with Randy (Nicholas Cage), a Hollywood punk who has crashed the party with his friend, Fred Bailey (Cameron Dye). They hit it off well, especially after Julie learns that Randy was the young man at the beach earlier. Tommy is jealous, and tries to seduce Loryn into bed. He fails and gets his cronies to eject Randy and Fred from the party. Undaunted, Randy sneaks back into the house, and hides in an upstairs bathroom shower. Randy waits in the shower for Julie to enter the bathroom as various partygoers come and go, talking about and trying to have sex, and doing drugs. When Julie eventually does enter, Randy convinces her to leave the party with him. Julie brings a very reluctant Stacey along for the ride with Randy and Fred. While at Randy's favorite Hollywood nightclub, Julie and Randy rapidly grow closer as Stacey continually rebuffs Fred's advances. Over the next few days Julie's friends, dismayed by her relationship with Randy, pressure her to drop him and get back together with Tommy. Julie asks her father (Frederic Forrest) for advice, and he kindly tells her that she should follow her heart. Despite this, Julie reconciles with Tommy and later dumps Randy. A heartbroken Randy gets severely drunk, makes out with his ex-girlfriend Samantha (Tina Theberge), and nearly gets into a fight with a gang of low riders before Fred saves him. Fred chides Randy for moping over Julie, but tells him that he needs to fight if he truly wants her back. After Randy flits about the Valley for the next few days just so he can get a glimpse at Julie, Fred says that he has a plan that will both reunite Randy with Julie and get revenge against Tommy. A minor subplot involves Suzi and her stepmother, Beth (Lee Purcell), vying for the attention of a boy named Skip (David Ensor). At the party, Suzi tells Beth, who is chaperoning, about Skip, who she likes and hopes will show up. When Skip does arrive, Beth finds herself attracted to him. Beth's boyfriend Lyle (Wayne Crawford) is oblivious to Beth's desire for the teenage guy Skip. However, Skip is also attracted to Beth and goes out of his way to go to see her without Suzi finding out by delivering groceries to the house while Suzi is not home. One day, Skip enters Suzi's house, apparently looking for Beth. He goes upstairs and finds a woman in the shower in Beth's bedroom. Skip and this woman, whose face is not shown, are then shown making love. Another woman arrives home and goes upstairs. The bedroom door opens, Beth enters, and only then it is shown that Suzi was in the shower and in bed with Skip. Skip and Suzi go to the prom together. As the rest of the girls make prom decorations, Stacey and Loryn chat over their post-prom plans. Stacey reveals that Tommy made a reservation at the Valley Sheraton Hotel as an after-prom "surprise" for Julie. Tommy and Julie ride to the prom in a rented stretch limousine; Randy and Fred arrive shortly after and sneak backstage. Randy becomes increasingly annoyed with just watching the Valley High kids dance, but Fred assures him that all is going according to plan. Julie and Tommy are escorted backstage, waiting to be introduced as king and queen of the prom. Randy confronts Tommy, and the two begin to brawl. When the prom king and queen are announced, the curtain pulls back to reveal Randy beating up Tommy. Randy knocks Tommy out, then escorts a thrilled Julie from the stage through the crowd. Tommy recovers and storms through the crowd towards Randy and Julie, who start a food fight to slow Tommy down and facilitate their escape from the venue in Tommy's rented limousine. As the happy couple ride into the night towards the Valley Sheraton, Julie removes Tommy's I.D. bracelet, which had been a sign of the relationship between the two during the entire film, and throws it out the window. The scene, which echoes the final scene of the film 'The Graduate', pans to the overview of the Valley, while the limo turns past the Sherman Oaks Galleria glowing in the night. End credits.

Correction, he is not in prison in Alabama! There is a Huntsville, Texas, where a State Prison is located. The entire movie takes place in Texas & Mexico.

Malibu, California, 1962. Matt 'the Enforcer' Johnson (Jan-Michael Vincent), Jack Barlow (William Katt), and Leroy 'the Masochist' Smith (Gary Busey) are the three best surfers of the beach. On the morning of the South swell Matt is drunk, but he borrows a board from a little boy and succeeds in giving an excellent performance anyway. The three friends usually take their boards for free from Bear (Sam Melville), a man that believes in their success and who owns illegally a shop in a hut on the pier. One day, Jack meets Sally (Patti D'Arbanville), a nice girl from Chicago, in the cafe where she works as a waitress. He takes her to his home, to a frantic and chaotic party which a brawl ensues when a group of party crashers arrive and cause a ruckus. Another time later, Matt, Jack and Leroy go for a trip to Tijuana, Mexico, where Peggy (Lee Purcell), Matt's girlfriend, announces to the group that she is pregnant: she and Matt will have a baby. Matt, Jack, Leroy, Sally and Peggy have a good time, and but get into a barroom brawl at a strip club. They all manage to escape from the local police, but they find their car stripped and broken-into. They manage to replace the stolen tires and return to Malibu. A short time later, the Malibu police make Bear's shop close: the pier will be demolished. Three years later, 1965; The Western Swell. Jack, the most serious of the three, is working as a lifeguard on the beach, and is still with Sally. Matt lives with Peggy and their little daughter; he's the greatest surf champion, but he is always drunk and depressed: he hates being a hero. While drunk, he provokes a road accident in front of the beach and Jack hits him and throws him off the beach. The three friends, as many others, have received the draft notice, and this means being sent to Vietnam... to fight an unpopular war. Bear has gotten rich: he owns a new bright surf shop in downtown Malibu and is about to marry. At his wedding, he speaks to Jack about the importance of friendship: Matt and Jack make peace. The Malibu guys have all to show up at the induction on the same day. In order to dodge the draft, Leroy pretends to be mentally insane to the Army psychologist (Joe Spinell) that interviews him. At the same time, Matt simulates a serious problem in his leg. Waxer (Darrell Fetty) (another friend from the beach) pretends to be homosexual, but he's not believed. Jack doesn't do anything: he probably thinks it's his patriotic duty. Matt and Leroy succeed in avoiding it. Jack and Waxer are drafted into the US Army. In a flash forward to 1968, it is revealed that Waxer has died in Vietnam. Matt now works as a swimming pool lifeguard. He's invited to the premiere of a surf documentary, with some scenes about him. But upon seeing the film, he is disappointed: the film shows how his style has been overcome by a new surf hero, (Gerry Lopez, as himself). Bear has lost all his money, and his wife has left him. Jack comes back home from Vietnam, but Sally is not waiting for him. While he was fighting far from home, she married another man, (Steve Kanaly), one of the guys who were at the party in 1962. In the cemetery, in front of Waxer's grave, they remember their dead friend and recall nostalgic memories of the past. Three years later in 1971. Bear has become a drunkard and a homeless, but is still proud of his surfer friends. The greatest swell ever is coming. On the day of its utmost intensity (Big Wednesday) lifeguards warn people to stay off the beach. Matt, Jack and Leroy meet on the shore and go surfing one last time for old times sake. So does Lopez, the new surfer, who looks at them with admiration and respect. They are still great, but Matt slips off his board and seems to disappear under a gigantic wave. When he reappears, on the beach, he and his two friends are ready to acknowledge the supremacy of Lopez, the new champion surfer. The film ends with Matt, Jack and Leroy leaving the beach for the last time and leaving them their past and their youth which is no more.

Vince Majestyk is a farmer, an ex-con, a former U. S. Army Ranger instructor, and Vietnam War veteran, who owns and operates a watermelon farm in rural Colorado. He needs to harvest his crop soon in order to keep the farm financially solvent. A small-time hood, Bobby Kopas, attempts to coerce Vince into a protection racket of using unskilled drunks to harvest his watermelon crop. Vince runs him off with Kopas' shotgun and hires experienced Mexican migrant workers, including Nancy Chavez, a crops picker and also a union leader. They also become romantically attracted to each other, in the process. Later, Kopas brings assault charges against Vince, resulting in him being placed under arrest before he can finish the harvest. In jail, Vince meets Lt. McAllen, who knows a lot about Vince's checkered past, as well as annoying fellow inmate Frank Renda, a notorious mafia hit man. When a transport bus is assigned to take Vince, Renda, and a few other inmates for court sentencing, Renda's men try to break him out as the bus passes through town, killing several officers. In the escape attempt, Vince drives off in the bus with Renda still in handcuffs, eventually taking him to his hunting cabin in the nearby foothills. Vince hopes to trade Renda to the police in return for being released to finish harvesting his melons. Renda offers his captor $25,000 for his freedom, but Vince declines. Renda then threatens to kill Vince if he does not release him and Vince pretends to be persuaded to take the money, but contacts both the police and Renda's mafia contacts to come pick them up. Wiley, Renda's girlfriend, arrives, but they manage to turn the tables on Vince, although he is able to escape out of the car and returns to the police station empty-handed, with McAllen ordering a deputy to escort Vince to a jail cell. Renda learns the charges for which he had been imprisoned have been dropped and meets up with his right-hand man, Gene Lundy, who advises him to fly to Mexico for a vacation and enjoy himself, despite Renda's objections as he wants to take care of Vince personally. After returning, Renda and Wiley are met by Lundy, who introduces them to Kopas, whom Renda instantly dislikes because of Kopas' dishonest nature when Renda notices Vince hired the migrants to pick the melons and discovering some of the deputies disguised as road workers as a stakeout job. Renda orders Lundy to pull over and tells Kopas to get out, informing him that does exactly what Lundy tells him, before Renda and the others drive away. That night, Renda and his men arrive at the farm to kill Vince, but discover he is not at home. They instead rough up the hired hands, forcing them to depart, as well as shooting up the picked melons with sub-machine guns. As Vince and Nancy have a drink at a bar, Renda approaches and tells him he plans to kill him. Instead of being intimidated, Vince knocks Renda down, further infuriating him. When Vince and Nancy return to the farm, a horrified Vince looks at the ruined melons and the next day, his friend and hired hand Larry Mendoza, decides to take what is left of the crop into town to have them shipped to another state, as well as Vince's orders to drop Nancy at a bus station for her own safety. After Larry drops off Nancy, he goes to a train yard to drop the melons off, but is confronted by Kopas and Renda's men. They break his legs by slamming their car into him. At the hospital, McAllen informs Vince that his hired hands may have been responsible for Larry's injury and that the city police put a stakeout on Renda's lodge hideout in the mountains, but he has not been there since. Vince bitterly tells McAllen and his deputies to back off, despite McAllen's assurance that Vince will be killed by Renda, if so. When Vince returns home, he is shocked to see that Nancy hitched a ride back. Lundy goes to collect Renda and arrives back at the farm, where Kopas and the men are watching the house. Vince gets away in the back of his pickup truck driven by Nancy and a chase ensues. Luring Renda and his men into the foothills, Vince turns the tables on them and becomes the attacker, killing most of Renda's men during the pursuit. Realizing they are now the hunted, Renda retreats to the lodge where he, Wiley, Lundy and Kopas hole up to figure out another plan. Renda sends Wiley outside to negotiate with Vince, hoping to force him to show himself, but he sends her away with Nancy to find the police. Vince then assaults the cabin, killing Lundy after Renda sacrifices him to save himself. Disgusted at Renda, Kopas decides to leave when he realizes Renda will also kill him, too, to get to Vince. Kopas runs out and is caught by Vince, who decides to spare Kopas' life as long as he tells where Renda is. Vince jumps through the front window and blows Renda away. Kopas tries to escape in his car, but notices Vince stole the keys. The police, as well as Nancy and the now-arrested Wiley, show up at the cabin and take Kopas into custody. McAllen notices Renda's body and wants to take Vince to the station for questioning. Now satisfied, he declines the offer and he and Nancy drive away in the truck.