The story of a teenage girl’ initiation into the surf sub-culture, Gidget was a popular and influential film which catapulted Sandra Dee into major stardom, a position she would occupy for the next five years.
(In the same year, Dee also appeared in the melodrama A Summer’s Place, opposite heartthrob Troy Donahue, which became a blockbuster).
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1959 Theatrical Poster
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Directed by Paul Wendkos, Gidget was the first film featuring the character created by Hollywood writer Frederick Kohner in a 1957 novel, which was based on his own daughter.
The screenplay was actually written by Gabrielle Upton (pseudonym for Gillian Houghton).
Sandra Dee plays Frances Lawrence, age 17, on her summer break between junior and senior years of high school. She resists peer-group pressure to go “manhunting,” lamenting the times when girls had fun without boys. Frances also rejects her parents’ wish to fix her up on a date with Jeffrey Matthews, the educated son of a family friend.
The gang dubs their female mate “Gidget,” a nickname based on the combo of words, ‘girl’ and ‘midget.’
On a jaunt to the beach, the tomboyish Gidget meets the more mature surfer Moondoggie (James Darren). She quickly becomes infatuated with him, but he shows no romantic interest.
Meanwhile, conservative parents Russ and Dorothy Lawrence (Arthur O’Connell and Mary LaRoche) grant their daughter’s loan request ($25 for used surfboard) as an early birthday present.
She begins associating with the all-male surfer gang, led by the beach bum, The Kahuna (Cliff Robertson). An outsider, the Kahuna is a Korean War vet, who had dropped out of society.
Moondoggie admires Kahuna and wants to join him surfing in Peru at summer’s end, instead of going to college.
Gidget challenges Kahuna’s lifestyle, wondering how he can survive, let alone enjoy, a seemingly aimless and lonely existence–one without a steady job. Kahuna reflects on Gidget’s questioning, when his only friend, the pet bird, dies.
Gidget hires another surfer to be her date to the beach party, but her plan backfires when the surfer pawns the job off on Moondoggie, unaware that Gidget had just wanted to make him jealous.
Wishing to lose her virginity, Gidget tries to seduce the Kahuna, but he pretends not to be attracted to her. He asks her to leave just as Moondoggie arrives. The two men argue, and when a fight breaks up between them, and the cops are called to intervene.
Gidget, stranded with a flat tire, without her driver’s license, is taken to the police station. As a result, her parents take over her social life, Gidget’s father forbids her to see the surfing gang again, and her mother lectures her with the help of grandmother’s tapestry, which reads “A Real Woman brings out the best in a Man.”
Gidget’s father arranges a date with Jeffrey, which she grudgingly accepts. Surprisingly, Jeffrey turns out to be Moondoggie. Upon return to the beach, Kahuna tells them that he’s taken a job as pilot, and Moondoggie asks Gidget to wear his class pin.
The mainstreaming of the tomboy into an ordinary girl seeking domesticity is reflected in the movie’s popular theme song: “Although she’s not king-sized, her fingers are ring-sized. Gidget is the girl for me.”
Impact and Recycling
Gidget inspired various sequels, a TV series, TV films. The movie is also credited with launching the “beach party” genre of the early 1960s.
Cast
Sandra Dee as Francie Lawrence aka Gidget
James Darren as Jeffrey Matthews aka Moondoggie
Cliff Robertson as Burt Vail aka The Big Kahuna
Arthur O’Connell as Russell Lawrence
The Four Preps as Band at Beach
Mary LaRoche as Mrs. Dorothy Lawrence
Joby Baker as Stinky
Tom Laughlin as Lover Boy
Sue George as Betty Louise aka B.L.
Robert Ellis as Hot Shot
Credits:
Directed by Paul Wendkos
Produced by Lewis J. Rachmil
Screenplay by Gabrielle Upton, based on Frederick Kohner novel
Cinematography Burnett Guffey
Edited by William A. Lyon
Color process Columbia Color
Production and distribution: Columbia Pictures
Release date: April 10, 1959
Running time: 95 minutes
Box office $1.5 million (US rentals)
