Chiquilla

What a time capsule! A film that hearkens back to a cultural era of innocence, "Gidget" screams 1950s, with clothes, lingo, attitudes, and characters that now seem quaint. Gidget (Sandra Dee), that "pint size" sixteen-year-old who lives in Southern California, scampers down to the beach and takes an instant liking to surfing. In the process, she meets a fraternity of youthful, shirtless beach bums. Surfing, fun, and romantic complications ensue.

All fluffy and frothy in the first half, the film's plot and characters reek of bubble-gum shallowness, with dialogue to match. But the plot turns more dramatic in the second half, and characters show at least some degree of depth. Gidget comes across as smart, determined and, given her age, dubiously skilled at psychology, with words that make a big impression on The Big Kahuna (Cliff Robertson), surfers' de facto leader. Ultimately, the film conveys the theme that events and people ... change.

Visuals feature bright, splashy colors and a photogenic cast. Rear-screen projection and cast doubles, for the surfing scenes, look hokey now, but were the norm in those days. Music trends romantic and lively. Naturalistic sound of ocean waves enhances a relaxed, carefree tone.

Although perhaps needed for story balance, plot sequences that involve Gidget's parents seem stodgy, and detract from the main focus on the relationship between Gidget and her beach pals.

Sandra Dee, despite her squeaky voice, gives a performance that was better than I had expected. James Darren and Cliff Robertson add competent support.

If ever there was a film that captures the carefree, innocent life of kids in the 1950s, this is surely it. Undeniably nostalgic to older viewers, and prehistoric to younger viewers, "Gidget" will continue to fascinate, emblematic of an era that will never return.

All right, so it's not a masterpiece of moviemaking, but the film is still widely shown today and adored by most of those who see it. The slight, but very perceptive story concerns a plucky teenage girl nick-named Gidget(contractions of the words Girl and Midget) who mostly just wants to have fun in the sun. There's nothing wrong with that. But she's getting to that certain age where she's beginning to have deeper feelings, especially about the opposite sex. She begins to fall for a more "mature" surf bum(Cliff Robertson), but then finally settles for Moon-doggie(James Darren) who is closer to her own age. Some people might dismiss GIDGET as standard studio corn, but I beg to differ! It's not your typical sixties teen beach movie about surfing, sand, and sex. GIDGET actually has a story to tell. Maybe I'm being slightly sentimental, but to me GIDGET is a beautiful coming-of-age story that can still teach the teenagers of today a valuable lesson about first love. For those of you who didn't already know it, GIDGET was played by the beautiful young Sandra Dee who was a hot item in her day. Dee was seventeen and at her liveliest when she made this film. I would also say she was at her most appealing. She's on the screen for most of the film's 95minutes, and she's an absolute joy to watch for the film's entire running. Needless to say, I thought Dee was irresistably charming in this film. It's easy to see why she was so popular and such an idol to teenage girls in the sixties. She's blonde, beautiful, spirited, and has a terrific personality. It's a pity she doesn't make more films today. Having seen most of her films, I must say that in addition to being a pretty face, she is also a good actress. I could watch her for hours and hours. I may only be a simple 21-year-old boy from cincinnati, but I really enjoy and appreciate older films like this. They're fun and teach a lesson without being too preachy. If you're at the local video store one night and want something that's not too complex and is just good, clean fun, then GIDGET is highly recommended!!!!! And yes, this is the film that spawned the equally popular hit TV series starring another fresh and exciting talent, Sally Field.

My grandmother, Mary, was 15 years old when she first saw the first Gidget (1959) movie with Sandra Dee and James Darren, in The New Bell Theatre in Bellflower California. She and her best friend Eunice saw a movie about growing up, discovering boys, and learning lessons. Francie is a 16 year old girl, blonde and pretty, but very young in appearance. She is recruited by her female Francie to begin a "man-hunt" on the beach where they live in sunny California, and Francie reluctantly follows. As they sit on the beach, Francie's friends try to lure the muscular tanned college men over, while the guys are referring to them as jailbait, and Francie urges the girls to join her swimming. It is not that she has no interest in boys, but as Francie told her mother, "when they start smoothing and pawing, UH doesn't it make you sick too mama?!" Mama assures her that she just needs to find the right man. So the search begins.

As we watched the movie, my grandmother pointed out things she had thought as a young adolescent girl, and also things that she thought of now that had been difficult to put into words at a young age. "That blue of the ocean, oh, even as a young girl, from then on it meant sexuality to me," my grandma confides, as she looks to see that no one else heard her. As Francie breaks away from her friends, she begins to find her self more and more, in the middle of a group of about eight very attractive, muscular, and tanned men, all older than she is, teaching her how to ride those big blue waves. The guys call her Gidget, a cross between Girl and Midget, which is a barrier to Francie in the beginning, because it shows that the guys only see her as a little girl.

My grandmother explained as we watched this film together, that this movie was what "made me look at those things in a different way. I had more interest in boys at the end of the movie!" It was the first teenage love story she had ever seen, and she seemed to almost regress to a teenager as we watched the movie together. "Oh, James Darren is such a hunk!" and "I had such a crush on him..."and "what cute clothes she wears!" She commented that after this movie she made it a point to make her wardrobe similar to Sandra Dee's. "Those shirts with the hood like you wear today, they were popular back then too." She went on to say that when girls wanted to get clothes like Gidget's, they shopped at Judy's, and that it was "the absolute place! And I got to shop there!" I could hear her begin to revert to the phrases she used as a teenager as she got excited about the fashions of her childhood.

Before the movie began, my Grandma thought about what she remembered most clearly about the movie. "I remember the dress she wore, and what color it was. It sticks in my mind to this day." During the scene where Gidget gets dressed to go to the luau, my grandmother interrupts the movie to tell me something else. "There's the dress! I don't even like orange, in fact, I hate the color orange...but that's a very special dress to me."

This movie was filmed in vibrant color and shot on the beach in Malibu. This alone drew many young people to the film. It was about discovering sex and growing up, and teenagers of the fifties were very interested. This movie was memorable to my grandma and to her friends of the fifties because of a combination longing to be on a beach surfing with hunky surf bums and the excitement for the beginning of love stories made especially for teens. Sandra Dee was the perfect teenage girl in the eyes of the youth in the fifties, because she was pretty, sweet, innocent, and smart, yet she still had the sense of adventure, rebellion, and need for sex in which the kids of the fifties were becoming more and more interested.

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.

As someone who lived the dream of being a California surf bum, I was pleasantly reminiscing about those years while watching this movie. The Big Kahuna, played by Cliff Robertson, was easy to identify with. I've heard it said that "surfing makes you feel like a kid again." So there are therapeutic qualities surfing gives to someone who has experienced tragedy as Robertson's character has in the Korean War.

The Gidget character, played by Sandra Dee, is a delightful dichotomy as she seems at once a woman and a girl. This is a dilemma I'm sure many 16 and 17-year-old girls have dealt with. Gidget's friendships with the male characters make her "one of the guys" to them. In this regard, she is similar to the Mary character, played by Carmen Diaz, in "Something About Mary." While every man wants a romantic love partner, they are often happier with a woman who can be a friend. This revelation seems to be guiding Moondoggie as he pursues Gidget in the end.