High Rollers Movie – An Arizona Skateboarding Documentary

Epic Review

Watching High Rollers – The Golden Age of Arizona Skateboarding is like finding a lost artifact that helps complete a larger mystery from the past. In this case High Rollers adds a much needed layer of knowledge to the origins of radical vertical, and over-vertical, skateboarding. The skateboard boom of the 1970’s went from “sidewalk surfing” and driveway antics to aerials out of backyard swimming pools in an astonishingly short span of time. This evolutionary leap was for the most part well documented in the pages of Skateboarder Magazine and the 2001 documentary Dogtown and Z-Boyz. However, the field of vision both of these forms of media is narrow (although both are excellent), they both deal almost exclusively with what was happening in California (with occasional nods to Florida). It is understandable as skateboarding was born and given life in California, but what happened next? What was going on elsewhere? High Rollers helps complete this picture.

Arizona actually played a large role in pushing skateboarding to new, and often over-vertical heights. While famed places like the “desert pipes” were covered in Skateboarder Magazine it was always focused on documenting trips by visiting California pros. High Rollers documents the Arizona locals that were pushing the envelope as equals and guiding skateboarding into a new realm of possibilities. The photos and video footage are archival and curated from sources of varying quality to be sure (…cue from the mind of Minolta 70’s ad). The term no filter needed comes to mind. However, the often grainy and obviously vintage footage lends some authenticity to the feel of the film. Seeing reel to reel footage of the legendary early proving grounds like the Dead Cat pool and High Roller Skatepark is a fantastic time capsule. It definitely induced a halcyon-quaalude 70’s daydream state in this viewer to be sure.

One of the best aspect of High Rollers is it basically picks up where Dogtown and Z-Boyz leaves off That film documented the origins of pool skating by the people that invented it. However, it basically leaves off with the birth of skateparks in the late 70’s. (by the way…no Dogtowner ever won a professional park pool contest). High Rollers makes transition from the early Dead Cat pool days to the High Roller, Permenent Wave, and Skate in the Shade Skateparks and it is clear from the footage how the parks pushed skating to new limits. Whereas California skateparks like the Upland Pipeline birthed the post Dogtown generation of skateboarders such as Steve and Mickie Alba, Arizona’s High Roller skatepark birthed unsung locals such as Steve Shelton and Todd Joseph. The Steve Shelton footage in this film was particularly revelatory. He is just one of those skateboarders that you wonder if they even had a learning curve or did they just start out as fully formed rippers? There are so many shots of Shelton in this film that are just perfect. Perfectly executed on his part, and perfectly captured by the photographer (Joey Albillar most likely). His is truly a case of had he been in California in this time frame he’d be a household name in skateboarding today. In many ways High Rollers is “the Steve Shelton Story” and that is just awesome and it’s great to see him finally properly documented.

High Rollers wraps up the pool-pipe-park era in the early 1980’s with the closing of the first generation of the concrete skateparks and skateboarding moving into the backyard ramp era or skateboarding. High Roller is a great addition to the documentation of the early days for skateboarding. A contribution to a larger would-be book titled, On the Origins of Species: Urethane Man. Leaving the theater I had the gnawing feeling to see the next chapter of Arizona skateboarding on the big screen. The next generation, my generation, are the ones that came of age on backyard ramps, ditches and…the streets. The first ollies, wallrides, handrails. People in my generation it’s time to document the next chapter. — Chris Kelley

High Rollers Movie OST – Listen!