I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

The greatest social revolution of the 20th century was the emergence of the teenager. Before the mid-50s teenagers didn't exist - people went straight from childhood to middle age - from Disney to Bing Crosby, apparently. Teens were neither a subject nor a market until rock and roll gave them a voice and James Dean gave them a presence. Up until then Hollywood had been in the grip of the old guard who had set things up in the 20s, and as they got older, film output calcified into stock formats - epics, melodramas, noirs, westerns to keep the old folk happy.This preamble is just to put Gidget into context. Trite and trivial now, it must have been vibrantly original at the time, spawning a mini genre of beach films and beach music through the 60s - this film was made a couple of years before the Beach Boys formed and the music in it is, bizarrely, still closer to Frank Sinatra than rock and roll. The authenticity of the innocent charm is the best thing about it, though titchy Sandra Dee (Gidget = girl-midget) is cute enough, and the good-natured sexual liberation is remarkable - a sixteen year-old is basically out to lose her virginity. Corny back-projection surfing is a must, there's a luau (new to me) and a wholesome family that gives it a Happy Days feel. But most of all it feels like the beginning of things.

Likable teenage soap about a tomboy (Sandra Dee) who falls for a beach bum (James Darren) while discovering her love for surfing. This is not at all a comedy and I'm not sure why it's listed that way, here and everywhere else you look. It doesn't even try to be funny outside of some of the surfer dudes' lines. It's a relic of its time and youth culture. Similar to the Frankie & Annette Beach Party movies, but without the singing and not as much fun. Sandra Dee's adorableness carries the whole movie. Inspired a later TV series starring Sally Field that I liked a lot as a kid.

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.

Whenever I watch an older Hollywood movie like Gidget, I can't help but think about the scene in the latest remake of King Kong where Jack Black's character is meeting with a group of producers. One producer asks if there is going to be any breasts in the movie since people like to see breasts. Sex sells, even in a purportedly innocent film like Gidget.In the opening scenes, Gidget is shown wearing a sloppy one piece woolen swimsuit, but as the movie progresses, she wears increasingly revealing outfits that accentuate Dee's wasp waist--in one later scene Dee's erect nipples are clearly visible, something that I'm sure zoomed right over the heads of the censors.I may be cynical, but I can imagine that one of the producers whispered in the ear of the costumers that we need to give the (adolescent boy) fans a little something extra--and Dee was given a bra that was a little sheerer, and a slightly thinner top for that scene. Dee stated later in her biography that her breasts developed quickly to a 34 D, and while never exploitive, its obvious that someone else involved in the making of the film also noticed.Don't get me wrong, while I felt that this film was kind of corny, it was also very sweet--I was just surprised that they snuck that in, and I am sure it was just as calculated as the shots of Annete Funicello's tight sweater in the later Beach Blanket Bingo movies.