KYMM'S 365 DAY MOVIE CHALLENGE #13: Gidget (1959, dir by Paul Wendkos, USA)
Gather round, children, and I will tell you a tale.
Back in the olden days, there was no streaming, no DVRs, no DVDs, no VCRs, no Roku, no cable channels beyond Z Channel, which was a local to LA premium cable channel before the term existed, and it didn’t matter anyway, because we didn’t have it at my house. There were just the broadcast stations ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, and the local stations KTLA, KTTV, KCAL, and KCOP.
We watched the shows as they spilled out into our houses. There weren’t special channels just for kids, there was just what was on, and we watched it and we liked it, and if we missed it, it was gone forever.
In the afternoons after school, there were movies on one of the channels, channel 5? Channel 11? Anyway, those movies were often on a theme, and I remember that on the reg that theme was beach party movies. And lil Kymm loved those beach party movies. And that was what it was like growing up in the 1970s, no choice for TV, but it didn’t matter, because we liked it all anyway.
What kind of a monster doesn’t like beach party movies? Not one I want to be acquainted with, that’s for certain. After recently watching the actual beach party movie that was called Beach Party for the first time in many a year, I made a list of all the various beach party films and beach party rip-offs, and planned to go through them. I haven’t yet, of course, because I love making a plan much better than finishing one. The Gidget films aren’t part of the official beach party oeuvre, which were AIP films and mostly had Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon in them. They in fact preceded them.
Sandra Dee plays Francine, a teen-age girl lagging behind her friends in being interested in boys and smooching and things. She loves the beach and snorkeling, but her friends take her on a man hunt, where the point of being on the beach is to make the boys on the beach notice you. Francine doesn’t do well on this man hunt, even with a bunch of cute surfers around, and the girls abandon her to try a different beach. She goes snorkeling, gets tangled in some seaweed, and is rescued by Moondoggie on his surfboard, and that is it for Francine, all she wants to do is surf!
She also wants to get Moondoggie to notice her. She starts hanging around the surfers, who nickname her Gidget, which means “girl midget” because she is short, although frankly not many of these boys seriously tower over her. The leader of the surfers is The Big Kahuna, an older surf bum played by Cliff Robertson and who knew he was that cute? He should have done more films with a tan and his shirt off , that’s all I have to say. He says that Gidget can be their mascot, and he takes her seriously and isn’t a jerk like some of the boys are.
Of course, she only has eyes for Moondoggie, (James Darren), who is seriously a pill for a large part of the movie. He is the son of a rich man and he has decided to join Kahuna and be a beach bum too, dropping out of college and chasing the waves around the world on a tramp steamer. Can Gidget make Moondoggie notice her? Will Moondoggie realize that it’s a mistake to throw his life away just to show his father that he doesn’t have to be like him? Will Kahuna be honest with the fact that he cannot live his whole life with no ties and no goals, and for crying out loud, he is no spring chicken! (Cliff Robertson was 36 when he made this film)
It is entirely charming, funny, and sweet. Sandra Dee is not only adorable, but really played the part of a cheerful, 17 year old tomboy in a completely realistic and believable manner, likely because she was actually 17 years old. I really do need to get to the rest of the beach party movies, Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs frankly isn’t going to watch itself, but I am glad I took this detour to the original beach party, where the surfing is as important as the flirting, though the flirting is pretty good, too.
Kymm Zuckert is an actor/writer/native Angelino. When Kymm was a child, her parents would take her to see anything, which means that sometimes she will see a film today and say, “I saw that when I was eight, I don’t remember any of that inappropriate sex stuff!” Check out her entire 365 day blog @ https://365filmsin365days.movie.blog