"Gidget" and the Endless Deferral of Nonconformity

[David]

I just finished watching "Gidget" with Sandra Dee. I will be blunt here: I don't think it's necessarily the greatest film ever made.

The moral of the tale seems to be that kids need to work the wildness out of their system & settle as soon as possible into suburban conventionality. Gidget & Moondoggy both have double lives: at the beach, they're carefree & anti-establishment. At home with their parents, they're Francie & Jeffrey, & they both come to the conclusion that to follow convention is to please their parents & make their way into traditional society, including going to college & starting careers. The Big Kahuna (which was Hummel's pet name for Beethoven)--initially the charismatic, self-sufficient dropout, is shown up as being a fraud, a phony, & his way of life portrayed as a dead end, a fool's paradise, for kids who want to act responsibly & make mom & dad both happy & proud.

The whole movie is really stupid. I'd rather watch "The Little Foxes." In fact, wouldn't it have been cool to see Bette Davis as Regina Giddens send Sandra Dee (Gidget) to an early grave by keeping her nitroglycerin from her during cardiac arrest, or to see King Kong rip Gidget's maxilla from her mandible?