Gidget Grows Up (1969)

I adored this movie when I first watched it as a young thirteen year old on TV when it premiered. I've always loved Karen Valentine ever since I first spotted her on Room 222. What a wonderful movie and step back in time. I have also been trying to find Gidget Goes Hawaiian on the Internet for years, but to no avail. They never show that one anymore. *Sigh* For anyone who Loved the Gidget movies, you are going to LOVE this one. Karen V, Paul L, and Paul P were the absolute BEST! It is great to see Gidget doing something other than surfing and hanging out at the beach. And as much as I have always loved Gidget and Moondoggie as a couple, it was also nice to see her not pining over him this time. I guess she really did "Grow Up!" I Loved It! Thank you for uploading this wonderful movie...

Fond nostalgia can do only so much for making this cheese-fest TV movie watchable beyond the odd giggle at the expense of the script, fashions and "performances" in this surprisingly laugh-free entry in the creaky Gidget franchise that began back in 1959.A blender mix of "That Girl" and "Love American Style," "Gidget Grows Up" finds the former beach-bunny, father-fixated Gidget Lawrence (Karen Valentine- all wide eyes and Cinemascope grin) moving to New York to make the world a better place and recover from her tiresome on-again-off-again romance with steady beau Moondoggie (Paul Petersen)…not necessarily in that order.Befitting the timbre of the times, the heretofore famously self-interested teen is now a bleeding-heart tree hugger type complete with roommates that are a virtual Benetton ad of diversity (unfortunately, all are stricken with a serious case of the cutes).The plot, such as it is swerves on its predictable path with hints thrown that little Gidget actually gets deflowered by an older gentlemen (there is much talk about "reaching out" and so many montages that one can do what one will with the inferences and fade outs. To my jaundiced eye, this was 60s TV's way of saying that Gidget REALLY grew up).Desperately in need of a laugh track, "Gidget Grows Up" only really comes alive for the brief moments that Paul Lynde (as the "eccentric" bachelor landlord) is on screen. To pad out time to the inevitable final clinch, we have to watch like a million scenes of Valentine walking thoughtfully through Manhattan while listening to endless variations on a really awful theme song ("Growing up and falling down a lot…" Oh, brother!).A must for Karen Valentine fans (who developed into quite an actress…later) and those who like to relive their pasts, but otherwise not much here beyond camp value.

Another incarnation of Frederick Kohner's enduring "Gidget" character, here a college drop-out tired of the beach (and sometime-boyfriend Jeff) who hears a speech on television from the Ambassador to the United Nations and decides she wants to lend her services. In the lead, Karen Valentine certainly had big, perky shoes to fill, and she does so amiably (though her round, perpetually-teary eyes and overly-sincere gaze makes her seem more like Mary Tyler Moore than Sally Field or Sandra Dee). Gidge gets her foot in the door after arriving in New York City and trains to become a guide at the U.N., dating an older chair member from Australia while rooming with a black girl from Uganda and an Asian girl from the States. It's very neat and tidy, with general asides to the upheaval in our political world circa 1969. There's good location work, including some window browsing at Tiffany and Co., but all of the indoor scenes were obviously filmed on sets (several of which look suspiciously like the "I Dream of Jeannie" and "Bewitched" interiors from TV). Harmless fluff, bolstered by a strong supporting cast of character actors (including Paul Lynde as a former child star still in love with Helen Twelvetrees!).

Personally I can't believe this Gidget movie is given such a low rating. It was my favorite of all the Gidget movies. It was a switch from the Gidget surfing to Gidget getting out on her own and experiencing life.I wish they'd bring it out on DVD so I could get the movie for my youngest daughter because I know she'd like it.I'd even sit and watch it with her.I would enjoy seeing it again.It's a good movie for young girls to watch, I wish they'd still make movies like this.Karen Valentine did a great job as Gidget and Paul Peterson as Moon Doggie.Good movie in my opinion.