GIDGET (1959)

* * *

General, C-95m, USA.

D: Paul Wendkos. Sandra Dee, James Darren, Cliff Robertson, Arthur O’Connell, Yvonne Craig, The Four Preps.

Tagline: Watch out Brigitte...here comes Gidget!

This is basically a corny coming-of-age story, with a look at the social mores of the Eisenhower era. It’s fun, silly, innocent, and the best of the “Gidget” movies, bar none. I couldn’t bear to sit through those, even for a few minutes. Yet I love this movie for its kitchiness - it's like looking at old photographs and smiling at the silly hairdos, and thinking, "Wow, we looked so dorky. Wonder what the old gang is doing now?"

It’s the summer of ’59 and Francie Lawrence (an annoyingly perky Sandra Dee) is sixteen, petite, as one character puts, "practically pushing seventeen!" She’s an only child, doted on by her well-to-do parents Russell and Dorothy (Arthur Kennedy and Mary La Roche). Her friends (including one ambiguous female nicknamed "B.L." (for Betty Louise) and Yvonne "Batgirl" Craig) are all boy-crazy and she reluctantly lets herself get dragged on a ‘man hunt’.

“She just has to make it this summer!” one girl squeals.

"Oh, poor Francie. Back to senior year with nothing to show for it!” The girlfriends pose and preen on the sand, waiting for the guys to notice them. Francie keeps 'ruining the picture', whatever that means. She has no figure to speak of, which is a running joke.

The male surfers don’t want a girl around. “This beach is for surfers only, not dames.”

"Oh, I’m not a dame…” she protests.

Rather alarmingly, they cluster around her. “Well, it has all the earmarks of a dame.”

One leers at her flat chest, “Those aren’t ears.” Ugh.

The manhunt is declared a 'dry run'. “Say, let’s go to Santa Barbara, but without the papoose in tow.”

She realizes that her presence is unwanted and opts to go swimming on her own instead of continuing the manhunt.

“Francie, you’ve always been part of a foursome!” Patti, one of her friends reproaches in a half-hearted attempt to include her. “You’ll be an outcast, out in the cold!”

"It's already happened, Patti. I just don't fit in anymore."

I really detested her so-called 'friends'. They’re catty, shallow, and just plain horrible. I know they’re only characters, but I get the feeling that there is some basis in reality for this portrayal, given the time they’re living in. We've all met the kind of women they grow up to become.

Despite her declaration that she's a 'real good swimmer', Francie nearly drowns twice and has to be rescued by Moondoggie, one of the surfers. As he guides them back to the beach on his surfboard, they encounter a big wave and the thrill makes her forget that she almost drowned. As most of us know, he will be her first love and have to suffer through four bad sequels and a TV series and Gidget will be a different girl every time. The poor guy starts with Sandra Dee and somehow finds himself with Deborah Whalley and Sally Field before she became a flying nun. After the rescue, she meets the guys who jeered at her earlier: Hot Shot, Stinky, Loverboy, Waikiki, Lord Byron. The leader, dubbed the Big Kahuna (Hawaiian for 'chief'), is a good-looking older guy in his thirties. They're wholesome beach bum types, though hoodlums by Eisenhower standards, meaning those of Francie's stuffy father.

Her love interest, Moondoggie (James Darren) is a wannabe, a trust fund brat who ditches college because, in his words, he can’t measure up to the old man. His man-crush on Kahuna is pretty laughable, though I suppose the latter is supposed to be a father figure – one who doesn’t make demands.

Bitten by the surfing bug, Francie begs for early birthday money to buy a used board and then devotes herself to learning the sport. The guys nickname her ‘Gidget’ (meaning ‘girl midget) and she becomes their mascot. The ‘initiation’ is pretty rough: Moondoggie, though somewhat nicer to her than the others, nearly drowns the poor kid, shoving her head underwater to cut kelp. It’s a very sadistic scene. She barely has time to gulp some air before he forces her head down again. I felt sick watching it. Through a few surfy misadventures, Moondoggie develops protective feelings toward her, much against his will. When he begins to acknowledge his feelings, it's patronizing. "A girl like you is a lot of responsibility." I felt like saying, "Gee whiz. Like a puppy?"

Eventually, Gidget practices on her own and learns the Ways of the Surfer. "Surfing is out of this world. You can't imagine the thrill of the shooting the curl. It positively surpasses every living emotion I've ever had!" It's this enthusiasm that makes this kid sparkle. The only character to treat her with some respect is Kahuna (Cliff Robertson), meaning he doesn’t make fun of her like the others. The other guys worship him, especially Moondoggie, who constantly says things like, “We’re two of a kind, the Kahuna and me!” Yep, total man-crush.

Later we discover that Kahuna isn’t what he seems, and in bid to make Moondoggie jealous, Gidget gets in way over her head when Kahuna almost forgets that “it’s just a game.” In some ways, he’s the most interesting character in the movie. He’s not a bad man, but a weary one. He enjoys his position as alpha dog to a point, but knows that at the end of the summer, he’ll have to move on to the next beach or grow up. Part of the burden is the gang’s adulation – how does a guy live up to his own reputation when it’s not who he is? Or wants to be? Gidget gets him thinking, which echoes the words of her grandmother’s sampler: A real woman brings out the best in a man. Old-fashioned, but in some ways true. It could apply to anyone. Why not replace ‘woman’ with ‘parent’ and ‘man’ with ‘child’? I’m sure there are other variations of someone bringing out the best in another person. Still, too bad Kahuna was too old for her. I’d take him over everyone else in this movie.

Her mother is a good listener, though her advice is definitely geared to steer Gidget on the road to happy housewife. Mary La Roche gives a sly performance, giving the 50’s Mom role more spin than another actress would. She’s understanding and supportive, without being a blankly smiling Stepford wife. Arthur Kennedy (also in 1955’s Picnic) is a doting, but clueless father who needs his wife to calm him down during Gidget’s antics. He just wants his daughter to date the ‘right kind of boy’ – hence his constant hints of fixing her up with the dull son of a colleague. When Gidget eagerly tells her about the ‘crew’ and Moondoggie, Mom fishes gently, “And is he the one you like best?”

Poor Gidget just isn’t ready to date, despite a dubious ‘happy ending’. Her ‘coming-of-age’ is forced upon her through shunning (by her girlfriends) and gentle pressure from her well-meaning parents, leading to her desperation to be accepted before senior year. Kids develop at different rates, and I don't believe anyone should be pushed into adult situations, no matter how old they are physically. If they're emotionally fragile, the results could be disastrous.

But this sunny film has its dark side, which is unusual for films of this genre and time. At first glance, it's a silly beach party film like the ones Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon used to frolic in, but the subtext beneath the insipid dialogue shows what Hollywood wanted society to be. Feminism was barely existent in films, but some tried. And probably got rewritten in order to force a 'happy ending', in case some impressionable young girl got "ideas" and strayed from the path of wife and motherhood. And make sure that those crazy kids didn't find living on the beach too attractive. Otherwise, they might quit school, tear up their rich daddy's cheque of $150.00, and call themselves "Moondoggie". Oh, those hooligans...

Everyone treats her like crap; even her own parents insult her. Russell, her father, watching Francie approach the house in her soggy bathing gear, asks doubtfully, “That’s a ‘manhunter’?”

Dorothy, her mother retorts, “What did you expect? Kim Novak?”

Francie: Gee, thanks, Mom and Dad. Love you, too. By the way, why don't you take a look at these brochures? These places have the cutest names, don't you think? Sunnyrest, Shady Oaks, Sunset Manor...

Gidget and 1986's Dirty Dancing are so similar that I wonder if the former inspired the other. Both feature gawky young girls coming of age, learning to surf and dance, respectively. Their names are similar (Francie "Gidget" Lawrence and Frances "Baby" Houseman). They're both denied access to groups (because of Gidget's immaturity and Baby's social position). Only Gidget doesn't have Patrick Swayzie to back her up when she gets put in the corner. The novel by Frederick Kohner is a better, more thoughtful story. Based on the real-life adventures of his teenaged daughter and embellished for dramatic purposes, the novel was described as a "Catcher in the Rye for girls". I read it, and was surprised to find that it wasn’t far off the mark. The novel - originally entitled, Gidget, the Little Girl with Big Ideas - is more realistic, and I found her teenage slang both quaint and charming. I love the beatnik lingo: "Creamy!" (for wonderful) and lines like, "Pretend you're real gone over me. Gimme the mad rush." Man, I wish I could say stuff like that without getting a blank stare.

I also prefer the way she handled being fought over by two guys in the book. Instead of sticking around to see who ‘wins’ her (like most movies are wont to do), she grabs her board and shoots the curl, ignoring everyone’s shouts, completely absorbed in the perfect wave.

Give 'em the finger, kid. Nobody puts Gidget in the corner.