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  • Dudley Whitman, third from left, along with his brother Bill, far left, shot the film "True Hawaii: Land of Surf and Sunshine" in 1947. The Whitman brothers are shown at the first East Coast Surfing Championship in 1938. Special to the Record-Eagle

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  • Dudley Whitman

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August 18, 2010

Documentary premieres at Garden Theater

By LISA PERKINS lperkins@record-eagle.com

FRANKFORT — Dudley Whitman has been waiting for more than 60 years to see the Hawaiian adventure documentary he and his brother Bill filmed, up on the big screen.

The wait will be over Thursday when "True Hawaii: Land of Surf and Sunshine" premieres at the Frankfort Garden Theater. Proceeds from the 6 and 8 p.m. showings, dedicated to Bill Whitman, who died in 2007, will benefit the Paul Oliver Memorial Hospital.

"It is kind of remarkable that this is finally going to be seen," said 90-year-old Dudley Whitman, a summer resident of Frankfort, who in 1947 shot more than 11,000 feet of 16mm film capturing Hawaiian culture in Technicolor.

"I had looked at that film every five years or so and thought 'What in God's name are we going to do with it?,'" said Whitman, noting that last year a friend urged him to find a way to use it.

After editing and digitally transferring the film to high definition format, the vintage film has been interspersed with current clips, depicting Hawaii then-and-now.

"This is A, number one stuff, state of the art, beautiful," said Whitman, whose previous success in making short documentaries includes an Academy Award.

The Whitman brothers made short films that played before feature films for Warner Brothers, RKO and Paramount, many using an underwater camera the brothers had invented.

"We got into the movie business because I wanted to be able to show everyone what we had seen underwater, the beauty of it," said Whitman, who grew up surfing, snorkeling and spear fishing in Miami Beach.

"There were six or seven things on my list of things I wanted to do when I came home from World War II, making an underwater camera was one of them," said Whitman, who along with his brother, were the first to surf Hawaiian style in Florida and are members of the East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame.

That camera was key to the film the brothers planned to shoot in Hawaii.

"We set out to make a surfing movie, there just weren't very many of them then and the few there were weren't very good," Whitman said.

As luck would have it, the surf did not cooperate. After two weeks of less than ideal conditions, the brothers changed tactics and set out to film the Hawaiian islands and the culture of the people who lived there.

"When we got back to Hollywood, we took the film to Warner Brothers and were shocked when they told us they couldn't use it," said Whitman, explaining that the 16mm format was no longer being used.

"After shedding buckets of tears, we decided to get out of the business," said Whitman, noting that they would have had to invest in all new equipment and join the union to continue their filmmaking endeavors.

That didn't stop them from winning an Academy Award, however, when footage they shot was used in the Oscar-winning 1952 documentary "The Sea Around Us."

Whitman, who served as executive producer and associate editor of "True Hawaii," hopes that the film will eventually find its way on to the small screen.

"I would love to be able to turn on the television and see it there; it is a delightful film," Whitman said.

Admission for "True Hawaii" is $8 for adults and $3 for children 12 and younger.

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