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    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»1950s Movies»Movies 1959
    Movies 1959 Movies G 2 Mins Read

    Gidget (1959)

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    Sixteen-year-old Frances Lawrence (pert blonde, blue-eyed screen newcomer Sandra Dee at her most innocent) is the film’s title character, christened ‘Gidget’ by her friends at the beach (girl + midget = Gidget).

    Gidget and her more mature and boy-hungry friends (including future Batgirl Yvonne Craig) start their summer vacation by heading to the beach for excitement.

    She is introduced to the surf culture by “Moondoggie” (James Darren) and his gorgeous college-boy friends and is both attracted and repelled by the hedonist freedom and the inherent hypocrisy of the culture’s preoccupation with money.

    There is a pervasive sexual undertone to the film, with the possible loss of Gidget’s virginity a unifying theme. But she is essentially a child, and the three main male characters are each protective of her in their own way.

    Along with Moondoggie are her clueless father (Arthur O’Connell) and The Big Kahuna (Cliff Robertson).

    Ultimately some irony is introduced as Moondoggie turns out to be Jeffrey Matthews, the clean-cut boy Mr Lawrence has been trying all summer to persuade his daughter to date.

    James Darren became a huge teen idol and repeated the Moondoggie role in Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961), and Gidget Goes to Rome (1963) with two other Gidgets: Deborah Walley and Cindy Carol.

    Sandra Dee died on 20 February 2005 at the Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center in Thousand Oaks of complications from kidney disease after nearly two weeks in the hospital. She was just 63.

    Frances ‘Gidget’ Lawrence 
    Sandra Dee
    Jeffrey ‘Moondoggie’ Matthews
    James Darren
    Burt Vail (The Big Kahuna)
    Cliff Robertson
    Russell Lawrence
    Arthur O’Connell
    Mrs Dorothy Lawrence
    Mary LaRoche
    Stinky
    Joby Baker
    Lover Boy
    Tom Laughlin
    Betty ‘B.L.’ Louise 
    Sue George
    Hot Shot
    Robert Ellis
    Mary Lou
    Jo Morrow
    Nan
    Yvonne Craig
    Patti
    Patti Kane
    Waikiki
    Doug McClure
    Lord Byron
    Burt Metcalfe
    The Four Preps 
    Themselves

    Director
    Paul Wendkos

    Video

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