Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961)

Director:

Paul Wendkos

Writers:

Ruth Brooks Flippen (writer)
Frederick Kohner (writer)

Release Date:

2 June 1961 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Music | Romance

Tagline:

Get Happy! Get with it! Beach-Parties! Luau-Feasts! Surf-Boarding! Hula-Dancing! Have yourself a Hawaiian holiday when..."Gidget Goes Hawaiian"

Plot:

Francis is desperate: her parents want to force her to come with them on vacation to Hawaii - just during...

Plot Keywords:

Hawaii | Love Triangle | Surfing | Hula Dance | Youth

Cast

  (Credited cast)

James Darren	...	Moondoggie (Jeffrey Matthews)
Michael Callan	...	Eddie Horner
Deborah Walley	...	Gidget (Frances Lawrence)
Carl Reiner	...	Russ Lawrence
Peggy Cass	...	Mitzi Stewart
Eddie Foy Jr.	...	Monty Stewart
Jeff Donnell	...	Dorothy Lawrence
Vicki Trickett	...	Abby Stewart
Joby Baker	...	Judge Hamilton
Don Edmonds	...	Larry Neal
Bart Patton	...	Wally Hodges
Jan Conaway	...	Barbara Jo Wells
Robin Lory	...	Dee Dee Waters
Arnold Merritt	...	Clay Anderson
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
David Nuuhiwa	...	Himself

Runtime:

101 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:G | Finland:S

Filming Locations:

Leo Carrillo State Beach - 35000 W. Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, California, USA

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Holiday (2006)

Soundtrack:

Wild About the Girl

"Best Friends For Life"

"Gidget Goes Hawaiian" (1961) was the first Gidget (girl plus midget) sequel. James Darren continued as love interest Moondoggie but Sandra Dee was replaced by Deborah Walley. This role made Walley (a serious and talented actress) into a sudden teen sensation and probably insured that her acting would never be taken seriously. She was my first really big crush although not from this movie (I was too young to care about teen movies) but from "Summer Magic", a children's film she did for Disney several years later.

Walley, who did many of her own surfing sequences for the film, was super cute back then and had a great smile. She looks a lot like a pre-starvation diet Lindsey Lohen. She was only 5'2" and in this film looks a bit dumpy; in part because the clueless costume people gave her a particularly unflattering wardrobe and in part because she was cast opposite Vicki Trickett who would make almost any girl look bad in comparison. But Walley does an excellent job with the role and it is not hard to believe that all the boys would go for Gidget over Abby (Trickett's character).

"Gidget Goes Hawaiian" was released the same year as Elvis's "Blue Hawaii" and if you chopped up the two films and edited them together it would be difficult to tell their sequences apart. Trickett even looks like Elvis movie regular Shelley Fabares. Trickett was the first actress to use the term "best friends for life" (BFFL) in a movie; little realizing its future as a mainstay of text messaging.

The film gave teen girls pop singing star Darren. Darren sings the excellent title song along with a much weaker track titled "Wild About You". Teen girls also got a dancing Michael Callan ("Cat Ballou"). Watch for his impromptu dance sequence with Eddie Foy, Jr.

"Gidget Goes Hawaiian" is short on beautiful Hawaiian scenery and clever scripting but its target audience got plenty of Darren, Callan, and Hollywood's cutest redhead.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.