Gidget

This was definitely Sandra Dee's signature movie, and as a teen-age boy growing up in the sixties I was really taken with her. (Of course, I was not an aberration.) I saw this movie for the first time in the summer of 1959. I liked the beautiful California beach scenery, and the Four Preps music, and I was reasonably impressed with the acting. The cast was well-chosen. The cuddlesome-looking Sandra Dee was drawing, but she did not receive as much acclaim, as an actress. as she deserved; she was not only a cute bumess, but that little girl was strong-willed and outspoken in this movie. James Darren was a sharp-looking actor and singer, but his character was disgusting, since he was a bitter teen-ager with a big chip on his shoulder. If Arthur O'Connell was supposed to be serious in this movie, he did not do a good job of it as he played the role of Gidget's laughable high-strung father. Mary LaRoche was a beautiful, appealing lady who was wonderful as Gidget's mother. Jo Morrow, beautiful California beach scenery herself, was drawing in her minor role. Tom Laughlin, here about a dozen years before his "Billy Jack" days, seemed to click well with Dee in what was here his minor role. The story was more than what it appeared to be initially on the surface. It was about a teen-age girl who was at a crucial age, namely 16, and thus was in an identity crisis, and it was also about a girl who was, again, strong-willed as well. This movie was also a character study: she was infatuated with Mahuna, (Robertson)- an ex-Korean War vet in his middle thirties who lived only to surf and stay on the beach in a small hut there-, but she also was very up-front when she intonated to him that that was no way for him, nor anyone else, to live, and she thus had a pressing effect on him. (Only recently when I saw the movie on a DVD did I really notice the more serious aspect of the story.) Again, Sandra Dee was as cute as cute could be, but the movie did have a serious side. For more than one reason is it worth the time to see it.

I don't think you can get much further away from the stuff I usually watch like Cannibal Holocaust or Zombi 2 than Sandra Dee and Gidget. It's impossible not to enjoy Dee's performance. She's bubbly, spunky, and cute. What's not to like? Overall, Gidget is a sweet little movie that, for the most part, is entertaining. On the downside, far too often the sweetness turns into sappiness - something I cannot stomach.

Gidget is definitely a product of another time. Incidents that would automatically mean "sex" in a film made today are quite innocent and harmless in Gidget. A girl telling her mother that she wants to feel like a woman only means that she wants to fall in love and have a boyfriend. And watching with jaded 21st Century eyes, it's hard to imagine The Big Kahuna not being brought up on charges.

Gidget was a movie I saw when I was just going into high school. After I saw it I wanted to be Sandra Dee so badly. She was so perky and pretty, and just so naive. It was a great film set on the beach at Malibu. Young juniors in high school going to the beach to get the attention of the college men. Woo who! And all the antics that go with it. Including when Gidget meets James Darren and he is so very dreamy. He took my breath away. Wow that most handsomest man next to John Saxon. Yep I was taken with this young actor. Who was not only handsome, but he could sing too. That song Gidget I had on 45rpm as did all the girls after we all got a load of Sandra Dee and James Darren together. The story is not too complicated, girl likes boy, girl chases boy who is a surfer, girl learns to surf and tries to make boy jealous, boy pretends he is not interested, then comes unglued when she is with someone else. In the end the prettiest girl Gidget gets Moondoggie. This movie was legendary in 1959 and it made alot of girls want to be a surfer like Sandra Dee in the movie. She even shoots the curl with Moondoggie on his board with him. She tells him it is the ultimate! Cliff Robertson plays the Kahuna and the wisest of the group of surfers who sit on the beach all day sunning themselves and goofing off.

I liked this movie so much!

Francie Lawrence (Sandra Dee) is sixteen going on seventeen. She follows her friends who are out manhunting at the beach. She gets in trouble while swimming and gets rescued by surfer Moondoggy (James Darren). Her father tries to set her up with a proper gentleman but all she wants to do is surf. She befriends The Big Kahuna (Cliff Robertson) who follows the waves around the globe. The guys give her the nickname Gidget, girl plus midget.

I'm a little surprised by some of the rougher edges. I was expecting Frankie and Annette but this has a few aspects that are more interesting. The fact that she starts out more as a tomboy is interesting. The fact that she's surfing is outright ahead of its time. The Big Kahuna's globetrotting beach bum lifestyle is interesting. The guys taking in the little girl as one of their own is interesting. This does usher in the new genre of beach party movies. It's tiki torches and long wood surf boards. It does get into an uncomfortable age difference. It would have been great if Kahuna is simply joking around from the start. It is still struggling with some old fashion romantic entanglements. This is a very good teen movie and starting a new genre deserves some praise.

This movie came out in 1959, when I was a teenager too. It was a simpler time, and this is a fresh movie, compared to all the forced sex and dirty language added to most 'teen' movies nowadays.

Sandra Dee had just turned 16 when 'Gidget' was filmed in the summer of 1958, but even though she is small she comes across as a bit more mature. In fact, my wife guessed incorrectly that she was around 22. She may not have had a long or productive career, but she was just perfect as the gidget befriending a group of surfer bums that memorable summer in California.

Mom and dad want to fix their daughter up with this nice young man, a musician, son of an upstanding family. But she wants no part of her parents' plan, instead hanging out with her girl friends. One day at the beach, some somewhat older boys, and one 30-something beach bum, ignore the girls, but 'Moondoggie' goes out and saves 'Gidget' when she becomes entangled in seaweed. She gets hooked on surfing, buys a used board, by mid-summer is surfing as 'one of the guys.' She has fallen for 'Moondoggie' (James Darren, 23) but he just looks at her as a kid. When he eventually comes around, they find out that they are each the same two people that their parents' had tried to fix them up with at the start of the movie.

The nicest thing about this movie is depicting simpler teen times without sex and foul language.