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.
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.