GIDGET, the boy-bewitched teenage surfer girl from Frederick Kohner’s daughter-based 1957 novel, has been played in movies and on TV by, among others, Deborah Walley, Cindy Carol, Sally Field and Karen Valentine. But the perky pint-sized heroine ultimately belongs to Sandra Dee in the 1959 opener, a sleeper success that year (63rd place, $4,300,000), instrumental not merely in fastening the winsome 16-year-old actress in her mushrooming career but by helping launch a comedy subgenre, popularize a cool sport and prod another rush of fun-seeking home-grown migrants to the blonde-bedecked beaches of The Golden State.  Crazy, man!

“Gee, if I could only make Moondoggie be jealous.”

Southern California, summer break. Before she begins senior year in high school, ‘Francine Lawrence’ (Dee) heads to the beach with her “manhunting” girlfriends, but she lacks their suggestive posture and the guys ruling the sand kid her size and sweetness. She is impressed by their surfing, and sets her cap (and numerous changes of bathing suits) on learning how to ride waves and maybe make a few. She yens for the seemingly disinterested dude nicknamed ‘Moondoggie’ (James Darren, 22) while finding what looks to be brotherly kindness from ‘The Big Kahuna’ (Cliff Robertson, 34), the older fella and Korean War vet the others hold in esteem for his Bohemian lifestyle. The beach parties are wild neck zones. Mom (Mary LaRoche) is patient, Dad (Arthur O’Connell) a nervous wreck. Nicknamed ‘Gidget’—girl + midget— by the gang (the benign kind) forthright Francine learns a lot. And teaches a good deal in return.

The end of the Ike Age was near, the JFK thaw on the horizon. The coming-of-age twist mixes jokiness with light drama (teen crush variety and Kahuna’s ‘mature’ self-fooling) and tosses in some songs, two from Darren and two from The Four Preps (“Cinderella” is a fun number). The surf footage relies on rear-screen projection to put the stars “on board”; it’s part of the nostalgic charm. Arthur Morton provides a pleasing music score.

Darren and Robertson handle the carbon-dated material well, and on the beach are newcomers Tom Laughlin (26, already tiresome as ‘Lover Boy’, 12 years before Billy Jack), Doug McClure, 23, and Joby Baker, 24. Gidget’s bust-profiling BFFs include Jo Morrow, 18, and bod-flaunting ballerina-turned-screen vamp Yvonne Craig, 21.

Dee, born Alexandra Zuck (that ain’t going anywhere, kid), was all over the screen that year, prominently featured in two big hits (Imitation Of Life and A Summer Place) as well as The Wild And The Innocent  and A Stranger In My Arms. Her freshness along with some insightful writing make Francine/Gidget both likable and acceptably real as a character, not overdoing the “cute” part and holding her own with the more serious moments. Gabrielle Upton wrote the screenplay, Paul Wendkos directed. 95 minutes.*

*  Paul Wendkos also piloted Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961, Deborah Walley, James Darren) and Gidget Goes To Rome (1963, Cindy Carol, Darren). The original novel, 164 pages, is titled “Gidget, the Little Girl With Big Ideas.”  Some of the 1957 tomes with Big Ideas she competed with included “On The Road”, “Some Came Running”, “Atlas Shrugged,” “On The Beach” and “Doctor Zhivago”. The who’ll- kiss-whom-first quandaries of Gidget & Moondoggie must’ve seemed like a breeze of fresh Malibu air.

The quartet The Four Preps, who do the title tune, had just aced two 1958 hits: “Big Man” (#3 charter, and a fave of this beach boy) and “26 Miles/Santa Catalina”, which took #2 and, like this movie, is considered key in helping prod the surf craze wave that rolled in big time in 1963 with Beach Party and the music of Jan & Dean, The Beach Boys, The Surfaris, The Rivieras, etc. Everyone ‘discovered’ California, millions piled in.

Aghast from afar—once-noted British film critic Margaret Hinxman, once-upon a Gidget: “the most terrifying Monster of the lot is the all-American teenager—at least, as currently portrayed in Gidget. It isn’t the noise they make—which is deafening. It isn’t the lingo, they speak-which is untranslatable: It isn’t even the capers they cut—which are maddening. It’s their devilish disregard for anybody else’s feelings, comfort or dignity which is so appalling. (Parents, of course, being strictly from ‘squaresville,’ are quite expendable.) And these, mark you. are supposed to be nice teenagers.”   A fussy scold, sure, but had she but known what lay ahead. A few decades down the boobian tube, the kids in Gidget come off like quantum physicists.

Eons ago (1972 to be exact) your doddering scribe, then 17, saw Sandra Dee during a take on the set of Love, American Style. She was 30 at the time, her career had waned, her private life a wreck, but she was vivacious and pretty as a picture. As long as we’re opining/ pining for what was, below we’ll bonus toss in The Four Preps’ two biggest hits. Just on account’a becuz, Beav…