Gidget Goes to Rome

Gidget Goes to Rome
August 7, 1963
Columbia
Comedy
VHS
C-

Released the same day as Beach Party, this is far inferior to not only the AIP series-starter, but to the previous Gidget movies.  The best thing about the movie is Don Porter in the first reel.  (He would also play Gidget's father, now a widower, in the Sally Field TV series a couple years later.)  Also, I do appreciate that they did extensive location shooting, and Rome does look good.  Unfortunately, there are these teens and post-teens cluttering the screen, too.

In the '90s comic Greg Proops would say of Luke 90210 Perry that he was "older than James Darren in the Gidget movies."  Darren was 27 by this point, and his character still has a year to go in college.  Gidget is now 18 and about to start college.  She remarks late in the movie that after visiting Rome she's "not the same person."  That's for sure!  Cindy Carol is the latest Gidget and, thanks to a script that Flippen unfortunately cowrote (rather than her soloing on Goes Hawaiian), and disappointing direction by Wendkos, C.C. plays the girl-midget as a sulky, sometimes crazy know-it-all who keeps getting into fixes that end up at the American Embassy.  (JFK's picture is on the wall, and the New York airport is still called Idlewild, a few months before the assassination.)  The two "steadies" have some moments together as a couple early on, but Jeff wants her to stop calling him Moondoggie.  (As if it wasn't a nickname from his surfer friends, rather than her!)  Soon though, he's flirting with their "Italian" (half-French) guide and dumping Gidget two years [sic] after pinning her.  He only goes back to her when the guide rejects his marriage proposal.  Meanwhile, Gidget "falls in love" with an older man, Paolo Cellini, not realizing that he's an old friend her dad asked to look after her.

The other characters aren't given much to do, although they seem to be trying really hard, especially the guests at the "international set" party.  If you feel the need to see this movie out of a sense of completeness, well, it's not too painful.

Peter Brooks, who plays Clay (the forgettable guy with the umbrella), would be in Girl Happy, as would Joby "Judge" Baker.  Cesare Danova, who's Paolo, would be Pepe Pepponi in Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!  Eddra Gale, who is "Fat Party Guest," would be in The Graduate.

"Yeah, and she hears voices and has delusions, too."

Gidget Goes Hawaiian

Gidget Goes Hawaiian
June 21, 1961
Columbia
Comedy, Musical
VHS
B+

This is an utterly delightful sequel, improving on the original in every regard.  No offence to Sandra Dee, but I think this is a great debut for Deborah Walley, then almost 20.  She could actually surf and this would be far from her last beach movie.  She's spunky in a different way than Dee, more obviously tomboyish, and she actually comes across as more innocent.  (Ironic, considering her AIP roles.)  She even has a bit of chemistry with James Darren, who stops being a jerk for the last 20 or 30 minutes of the movie.

Instead of just a triangle, we get a nine-sided group of teens and post-teens, with various pairings possible, although if the movie does have a weakness, it's that two of the guys and two of the girls are forgettable.  The other girl, Abby, is played by the deliciously feline Vicki Trickett.  (She's even scared of water, which pays off in her "punishment" at the end.)  Moondoggie's main rival is Michael Callan, playing a charming dancer, Eddie Horner.  (He gets saddled with a Broadway-Melody-Ballet-like number, but it's shorter and more bearable.)  Joby Baker actually plays a different character in this one (not just his nickname, since Judge has never met Gidget or Moondoggie before), and he adds to the hokey comedy.  Not that the film isn't genuinely funny much of the time.

It helps that Gidget's parents and Abby's are played by respectively Carl Reiner, Jeff Donnell (she nicknamed herself after "Mutt and Jeff," not after Moondoggie's birth name), Peggy Cass, and Eddie Foy, Jr.  They get a lot of screen time and they deserve it.  Not only do they all know how to make the most of out of their lines, but they manage to make Gidget's suspicions of wife-swapping plausible.  Yes, wife-swapping, although it's not called that.  She has a vivid imagination, and when Abby spreads rumors that Gidget sleeps around (not that it's called that), Gidget imagines herself as, in order, a streetwalker, a fan-dancer, and an unwed mother!  The movie is surprisingly outrageous, and even has jokes about suicide.  Yet it never comes across as sleazy.  Even when Moondoggie, Eddie, and Judge are singing the title tune and 'Doggie emphasizes, "When the Gidget goes Hawaiian, she goes Hawaiian all the way," it's suggestive, not tasteless.

This is the most fun movie of the '60s so far.  I will note in terms of continuity, that this is allegedly set the summer after the first movie, making Gidget almost 18.  Jeff pinning her is changed to this year rather than last.  I'll talk more about chronology when we get to Gidget Goes to Rome, also written by Ruth Brooks Flippen.

Donnell would return as Mrs. Lawrence for GG to Rome, but Foy would be "Beachgoer Wanting to Use Phone."  Don Edmonds, who plays forgettable guy Larry, would do Beach Ball.

Gidget

Gidget
April 10, 1959
Columbia
Comedy, Drama, Musical
VHS
B-

Almost 17-year-old Sandra Dee* plays the turning-17 title character (girl + midget).  This is the granddaddy of surf/beach movies, so we first see the-leads-surfing-against-rear-projection-waves mixed in with stunt surfers in long shots, and first hear a lot more talk about than practice of sex among the beach crowd.  This is based on the first of the Gidget books (which were in turn based on the author's daughter).  I've read only one of the books, and my review is here: http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/07/affairs-of-gidget.html.  The movies are apparently very different than the books, and I suspect the moral lessons that the mother gently passes on were not in the first novel.  When I first saw the movie in my early teens, I could relate to the pressure to have a boyfriend, and it wasn't till years later that it occurred to me that Gidget's boyish friend Betty Louise's initials may've stood for something else, fraternity pin or not.  Watching it now, I find Cliff Robertson a hell of a lot more attractive than cold fish James Darren, even when the latter is singing love songs.  Darren nonetheless would return as Moondoggie in the sequels, though the Gidgets would change.

Joby Baker is the only other member of the cast who would do the two film sequels, although his character's nickname would change from Stinky to Judge.  Paul Wendkos would stay on as director.  This film also features a 21-year-old Yvonne Craig (Batgirl) as one of Gidget's more buxom pals; and future Billy Jack, Tom Laughlin, as Loverboy.  Mary LaRoche, Gidget's sympathetic mom, would be in The Swinger.  (I don't own Bye Bye Birdie, but that's a very different Ann-Margret film she did.)  Four Preps member Bruce Belland would write "He's Gonna Make It" for The Barefoot Executive.  And, yes, orchestrator John Williams, Jr. is that John Williams.


*Dee's mother may have lied about Sandra's age, making her 15 in 1959.  In any case, she looks much younger than everyone else.