Gidget (1959)

(On Cable TV, January 2021) The 1950s can arguably be called the decade during which the teenager was solidified as an explicit life stage between childhood and adulthood. Hollywood, to no one’s surprise, was instrumental in charting and even creating the social construct: By 1959, after all, the oldest baby boomers were hitting 14 and aspiring to be older, the Southern Californian lifestyle was sweeping the nation’s collective imagination and the studios were desperately trying to keep young audiences in theatres given the threat from television. So here comes Gidget, one of the first movies to document the SoCal surf lifestyle. Featuring Sandra Dee as the titular “Girl Midget—Gidget” (despite not being that short compared to the other characters), the film still reads as a timeless example of a “What are these young ones doing?” bout of mild paranoia. Cliff Robertson shows up as a much older beach bum trying to hide away from Korea war PTSD, and becomes the object of the teenage protagonist’s affection—leading to one of the film’s least pleasant subplots, although to its credit the film does have the good sense of avoiding the teenager hooking up with the thirtysomething guy. Still, compared to many of its inheritors, Gidget is somewhat more serious-minded in its portrait of the American teenager—there’s some authentic coming-of-age here, and the film is not quite as mindless as the subsequent Beach Party series of movies. While Gidget is best experienced as a blast from the early years of American adolescence, it’s still likable on its own terms, early surfboards, 1950s hairstyles and all.