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Pro-Indians, social commentary, neo-westerns as well as melodramas are all amazing to explore, but I just could not leave the 1950s out without discussing the one film from the decade that becomes a timeless classic. The 50s is the decade where Teen Age Culture came into being. This was not only limited to teenagers existing, having specific interests, and social activities, but the fact that they were a key component of the pop culture landscape, especially when it came to music. The perfect storm where the economic expansion after WWII allowed for immense leisure time for adolescents was the ideal setting for this. For this study, we have selected 1959 to discuss Gidget. Gidget is the film that brought Sandra Dee into the limelight, while at the same time, promoting surfing California beach culture.
The name Sandra Dee is more associated with a concept than an actual human being. It’s a fact that the California beach life is more typical of aged hippies than of youngsters. This brings one of the core attributes of Gidget plus the rest of the teenage flicks, they never seem to endure. When there actually seems to be any semblance of real artistry, it is almost entirely by chance. It is by chance because a brilliant director iconically finds themselves anywhere near the generation (and you get Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without A Cause) or because the society of that particular time is so energetic and image-oriented that even serving as a mere document makes a statement (and then you get many films from the mid and late sixteen hundred). In any other case, they are fairly easy to box and ship to so-called journeymen directors who would prefer to earn money instead of art and who predominantly serve as custodians for the material than shapers of it (and you get goddamn near everything else, from I was a Teenage Werewolf right on down to Divergent and The Fault in Our Stars).
Teen audience films may lack substance as cinema, but they tend to be some of the most astonishing time capsules ever produced. These films tend to encapsulate a protracted period and mood of life better than anything else. Such films are created as a quick attempt to tell a story for the youth today, a group of people who are willing to reject the past and do not have the capability to conceptualize a future. Gidget, for instance, is a film that has meager charms as a story but is mostly compelling for the mores of the latter half of the 1950s as it pertained to teenage sexual development and peer pressure.
This may only appeal to a very restricted segment of the audience, but sociology remains sociology, and I am happy to believe that the refuse of one generation is enthralling to another. Who knows, maybe a geek of cinema from the future, about 20 years from now, will discover the same value in Twilight that I do 50 years from now.
To put it rather bluntly, the film Gidget is much too exposing and wholesome for the target audience set by Columbia as it came out in 1959. The fact it starred Sandra Dee also put her in a binary concept of being ‘too pure’ which makes the premise much more shocking. Gabrielle Upton wrote a script based on a book by Frederick Kohner, who wrote the book based on his daughter. The premise revolves around a 16-year-old girl named Frances Lawrence who was so practically overflowing with virginity that her friends took it upon themselves to get her laid. Unlike the Code era where the concept of swap sexual and subliminal messages would be highly used to cater to sensitive audiences, this era was rather direct. It is startling to me how bluntly the word “sex” is used in films released before the mid-1960s.
Still, having teenage boys paw at her or slobber all over her is not Francie’s style. As she embarks on her search for a man by the beach, she quickly learns that “surfing is much more interesting than giving sweaty blow jobs in the back seat of a T-Bird.” Of course, she doesn’t want to learn to surf but dressed up in a one-piece bathing suit that does not show off her chest, she is certain that she can learn how to surf. Surprisingly, French is a follower of surf-legend Kahuna Cliff Robertson who serves as a father-figure to a horde of teen boys. However, she ends up developing a crush on Moondoggie James Darren who is part of Kahuna’s gang but tries to stay away from her because he’s the most annoyed by her presence. During this time, she’s given the nickname “Gidget,” which literally translates to ’girl midget’ even though the mediatrix Paul Wendkos and cinematographer Burnett Guffey’s angle of filming the scene does not give any indication that Dee is unusually short in stature when compared to the rest of the group of girls in the movie.
The blunt and honest acceptance that teenagers have needs that involve humping each other qualifies as perhaps the most interesting thing about ‘Gidget’ which manages in a very straightforward, non-exploitative manner, (compared to the lascivious AIP movies of the 60’s this lacks genuine libido) has the potential to shatter the perceptions of the Eisenhower era, which is widely believed to be a period when teenagers were obliged to engage in wholesome activities such as attending sock hops and guzzling milkshakes at brightly-lit soda fountains, irrespective of what they actually did. Surprisingly in Gidget, teenagers are so sophisticated that even the ultra-coy Francie isn’t the least bit startled when she ends up in a Kehuna’s rape cave, (and in fact, she strongly persuades him to accompany her). It’s nice that something in Gidget is engaging, as a film in and of itself, it’s frankly not so great.
My favorite part is the opening credits where the key elements are quirky, and it is very “Saul Bassish”. Huge colored blocks transition and dance around, the whole scene is beautifully ruined by a theme song that suggests you are boned out of your mind, if the singer obsessed while imagining performing the acto one could feel some surreal pleasure.
The movie is “frivolous,” but that’s hardly a critique of a beach movie and more of a description. Which is why it is awfully dumb. Robertson seems to be the only cast member who put thought into his character and was able to stay grounded in reality. Ms. Dee is a bit exhausting herself with her shrill scream of joy at every single event that happens in the movie. And don’t get me started on how she puts a spin on 50’s teen slang. It makes it a million times worse than it already is. If I hear someone say, “Just, the ultimate,” oh boy will I tear down a wall. And thankfully it’s 2010, meaning there’s no way I will hear that after the nostalgic 50s and 80s.
And there’s no point in saying that Gidget is anything near a masterpiece of craft: it is the epitome of something that has been churned out with very little effort. The surfing stock footage is nice to watch, if not only because the beach movies released five years later are far more impressive. Also, the amount of location shooting is nice, I guess, which gives the film a bright, spacious, and clean look. But it is all so dull and mundane and greatly lacking any ambition or actual effort that there is no attempt whatsoever to make use of the anamorphic widescreen frame. At best, this is one of those: in many scenes, there is some seriously terrible “don’t give a fuck” sound editing, where lines get clipped off without care and, from shot to shot, ambient noise fails to match up to the action on the screen as if the whole thing had about ten hours in post-production.
That’s the other thing about time capsules, they rarely have things to offer outside the window they provide of a different time in history. To be completely frank, Gidget’s sentiments hardly “work” It is intriguing in the sense of how outdated it has become, but all that is incredibly extratextual. No, it’s lesser, but a reward for the very fact that it highlights how life has changed. Teens in Gidget can be recognized in their form from any slice of American history even if the way they express themselves is so outlandish that it makes it seem like an artifact from an alien planet.
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