The Gidget franchise gets its start with this 1959 starring Sandra Dee as the original Gidget. Dee never got to repeat the role which probably more than anything else established her image as the squeaky clean teen dream of the era.

In fact Francie Lawrence as she's originally known is something of a tomboy, but she's slowly discovering an opposite sex is useful in more ways than beating them in sports. Her friends persuade her to go to the beach and see if they can attract some of the opposite sex. But young Francie Lawrence takes up with some surfer kids after one of them, James Darren, saves her life. She becomes a mascot for them and in the process learns how to surf, how to love surfing, and what boys are really for.

She even picks up the nickname of Gidget where forever afterward she will be known except when her parents Arthur O'Connell and Mary Roche in this film are mad at her.

Presiding over the surfing kids is surfing bum Cliff Robertson known as Kahuna. I'm wondering if it was in that film that the term Kahuna entered the English language to denote someone who was the kingpin in whatever field, besides surfing. He and Darren have a bit of a rivalry over Dee.

The same things that made America for a generation check out Baywatch is present in abundance in Gidget. Nice Malibu scenery, gorgeous beach and scantily clad young and nubile females. Especially young and nubile Sandra Dee. We've grown up a bit since Gidget, but the film and its successors are still good, light, very light entertainment.

Francie Lawrence (Sandra Dee) is sixteen going on seventeen. She follows her friends who are out manhunting at the beach. She gets in trouble while swimming and gets rescued by surfer Moondoggy (James Darren). Her father tries to set her up with a proper gentleman but all she wants to do is surf. She befriends The Big Kahuna (Cliff Robertson) who follows the waves around the globe. The guys give her the nickname Gidget, girl plus midget.

I'm a little surprised by some of the rougher edges. I was expecting Frankie and Annette but this has a few aspects that are more interesting. The fact that she starts out more as a tomboy is interesting. The fact that she's surfing is outright ahead of its time. The Big Kahuna's globetrotting beach bum lifestyle is interesting. The guys taking in the little girl as one of their own is interesting. This does usher in the new genre of beach party movies. It's tiki torches and long wood surf boards. It does get into an uncomfortable age difference. It would have been great if Kahuna is simply joking around from the start. It is still struggling with some old fashion romantic entanglements. This is a very good teen movie and starting a new genre deserves some praise.

On the one hand, "Gidget" looks like an intelligence-challenged flick, as the cute teenage girl goes to the beach to possibly meet boys. But I think that there's more to it than just that. As far as I could tell, the movie also looked at her burgeoning sexuality and her uncertainty thereof. Plus, the girls wear pants; wouldn't that have looked a little tomboyish in the '50s? What I'm saying is that people need to watch this movie again. While it remains a 1950s time capsule, I got the sense that something - I don't know what exactly - hinted at the changes coming over the next decade. In case anybody chooses to call this movie stupid, I totally reject that. "Stupid" is the description that I would apply to Eddie Murphy's movies from the past few years, or any Steven Seagal movie. As for Sandra Dee herself, from what I've read about her it sounds as though she was a pretty intelligent person, having far more substance than her movie roles implied.

Anyway, I recommend this movie. Also starring James Darren and Cliff Robertson. That means that Cliff Robertson is the only actor who has worked with Sandra Dee and Tobey Maguire (in "Spiderman").