Skaterdater is a 1965 short film (18 minutes) directed by Noel Black. It is a simple tale of young boys and their skateboards, filmed in Torrance and other Los Angeles County locales, with a cast of amateurs.
A group of boys of about 12 years or so have a sort of skateboarding gang. They zip around their suburban neighborhood on their skateboards, dressed identically, performing incredible stunts. One boy, who seems to be the leader, is distracted from his skateboarding buddies by a pretty girl seen riding around in her bicycle. He begins to hang out with the girl, much to the disgust of his buddies. Finally, another boy challenges him for leadership of the gang.
Tropes:
- Coming of Age Story: It's all a fable about boys growing up. At the end some of the other boys in the gang are also being distracted by pretty girls in the neighborhood.
- Distracted by the Sexy: The one boy seems to be more attuned to girls than his buddies in the gang. While the other boys care for nothing other than their skateboards, the one boy is continually looking at girls—the bicycle girl, an older girl in a parking lot, even a nude statue of a woman.
- Feet-First Introduction: Starts with a tight shot of the bare feet of the leader boy as he rides his skateboard.
- Match Cut: From a shot of an older man who gestures angrily at the skater kids zipping by, to a monkey gesturing in his cage. Made even more pointed by the fact that the scene has the monkey's chattering on the soundtrack while we're still looking at the man on the screen.
- Silence Is Golden: No dialogue, unless you count some irrelevant and only half-intelligible jabbering as the boys order food at a burger stand.
- Time-Passes Montage: A montage shows the boy and the girl spending time together, engaging in various activities, his skateboard forgotten.
