Gidget (film)

Gidget
1959 theatrical poster
Directed byPaul Wendkos
Screenplay byGabrielle Upton
Based onGidget
1957 novel
by Frederick Kohner
Produced byLewis J. Rachmil
StarringSandra Dee
Cliff Robertson
James Darren
Arthur O'Connell
The Four Preps
CinematographyBurnett Guffey
Edited byWilliam A. Lyon
Music byArthur Morton
Color processColumbiaColor
Production
company
Columbia Pictures
Distributed byColumbia Pictures
Release date
  • March 1959 (1959-03)
Running time
95 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$1.5 million (est. US /Canada rentals)[1][2]

Gidget is a 1959 American CinemaScope comedy film directed by directed by Paul Wendkos and starring [3][4] Sandra Dee, Cliff Robertson, James Darren, Arthur O'Connell, and the Four Preps.

The film is about a teenager's initiation into the California surf culture and her romance with a young surfer.

The film was the first of many screen appearances by the character Gidget, created by Hollywood writer Frederick Kohner (based on his daughter Kathy). The screenplay was written by Gillian Houghton, who was then head writer of the soap opera The Secret Storm, using the pen name Gabrielle Upton. This would be Upton's sole contribution to the Gidget canon. The story was based on Kohner's 1957 novel Gidget, the Little Girl with Big Ideas.

The film, which received one award nomination, not only inspired various sequel films, a television series, and television films, but is also considered the beginning of the entire "beach party film" genre. Gidget is credited by numerous sources (Stoked! A History of Surf Culture by Drew Kampion; The Encyclopedia of Surfing by Matt Warshaw; and Riding Giants, a documentary film by Stacy Peralta—to name just three) as the single biggest factor in the mainstreaming of surfing culture in the United States.[5][6]

  1. ^ Tom Lisanti, Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave, 1959-1969, McFarland 2005, 29
  2. ^ "1959: Probable Domestic Take", Variety, 6 January 1960 p 34
  3. ^ Variety film review; March 18, 1959, page 6.
  4. ^ Harrison's Reports film review; March 21, 1959, page 46.
  5. ^ "A Generation of Gidgets" Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine, by Jeff Spurrier, The Atlantic Monthly, April 2002 Retrieved 4 August 2009.
  6. ^ "Surfer Girl, Forever" by Hugo Martin, Los Angeles Times, June 17, 2006. Retrieved 4 August 2009.

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