Gidget (1959) We would never return to a movie like this to excoriate it for its wildly out-of-touch attitudes, treatment of sexuality, and everything else that defined American pop culture in 1959.
Give us a break, will ya? We only come back to "Gidget" to luxuriate in its 90 minutes of simple, straightforward sweet nostalgia for an age long gone, a era never to be seen again.
If we tried applying tough critical standards here, we'd feel like we were slapping a kitten. An extra cute adorable kitten.
There are, however, any number of interesting things we picked up here in a film we'd consider as Hollywood's first official widescreen, technicolor Young Adult romance.......(Years earlier, in the 40's, the studios tried making a teen sweetheart out of Shirley Temple,but the film's tanked...too much 'Good Ship Lolliopop' baggage, we guess)
For the new generation of teens, Sandra Dee hit 'em where they lived, whether suffering the angst of "A Summer Place" or frolicking on the beach like a new born colt.
The pronounced androgyny of American's new teen sweetheart struck us first........in the first half of the film, she's presented as a rail-thin, flat chested, spaghetti-limbed child compared to her especially curvy bombshell besties, including future 'Batgirl' Yvonne Craig.
Babbling like an ADD afflicted 12 year old, Dee's deliberately made to look like a transgender testing out the results of some freshly completed medical procedures.
The preening, testosterone-heavy Malibu beach boys, including future TV star Doug McClure and none other than pre-'Billy Jack' Tom Laughlin, seem to scoff at any traces of her femininity, adopting her as a mascot as if she were a 12 year old boy.
(This adoption hazing process involves an attempt to drown Dee in a floating bed of kelp, a fate she'd already barely survived a few scenes earlier)
But before you can say 'Matt Gaetz', Laughlin's pretending to give Dee surfing lessons for the sole purpose of copping a feel. Rest easy, this is still the 1950's and Laughlin's quickly thwarted by Dee's ultimate romantic soulmate, her very own 'Moondoggie'...(James Darren).
Cliff Robertson, as the maturely cool surf bum "Big Kahuna" is the other interesting character to pop up here. An embittered Korean War veteran who's resigned from the workaday rat race, Robertson's 'Kahuna' swings back and forth from knowingly paternal to the young cast while he quietly broods about the emptiness of the rootless, free-spirited life he's chosen.
We sensed that an actor as subtle and skilled as Robertson could have done far more with this role than the material he's given. But then the movie's not really about him or his problems, so that's just wishful thinking on our part. (And in true 1950's Hollywood style, a warm touchy-feely, audience pleasing fate is arranged for him.....)
As for the rest of movie, we just sat back and smiled, taking it all in......the bouncy, jazzy music that accompanies the surfing shots, the toasty depiction of Dee's parents (Mary LaRoche as the calm, worldly wise Mom and Arthur O' Connell as the blustering, sputtering Dad)....and Sandra Dee herself, who in the second half of the film becomes re-feminized enough (with billowing poodle skirts and high heels) to land the ultimate prize.....officially 'pinned' as Moondoggie's girl-toy before he goes back to college.
At that moment, Dee squeals with delight as if she's won the teen equivalent of the Nobel Prize, which in effect, she has.......and all is right with the world. 3 stars (***)
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