Gidget Grows Up (1969)

Gidget Grows Up has been playing a number of times on the Cinevault channel on Roku over the past few months and I always happen to catch little bits of it but never had time to sit and watch it all the way through... until today, that is. 

Like many women, I grew up with the Gidget film series and have seen them all many times over. A lot of people say Sandra Dee is their favorite Gidget, no doubt because she was the first and defined the role, but I always liked Cindy Carol in Gidget Goes to Rome and Sally Field in the Gidget television series. Years ago, I read about a television movie being made with Karen Valentine in the role but never looked into it, so when Gidget Grows Up started playing on television, I had to check it out...and I am so glad that I did! 

Karen Valentine does an excellent job of playing Gidget in her various stages of maturing. She begins much like Sally Field, as an energetic headstrong girl and then blossoms - in the span of one hour and fifteen minutes - into a lovely young woman. As one might expect, Gidget has a breakup with her surf-hero Moondoggie again (played by Paul Peterson) and once more falls for an older man, but not the grizzled Kahuna from the first Gidget movie, instead it is the dapper Australian diplomat Alex McLaughlin (Edward Mulhare). For you see, Gidget has taken on the job of being a guide at the United Nations building in New York City so she is a long way from the beach now. 

Frances Lawrence aka Gidget is learning about love and relationships in a deeper way then what she experienced at the beach, and this makes the film more touching than any of the other Gidget pictures. Yet, it still has a light and playful air about it in keeping with the series. 

The film has a surprisingly good cast of seasoned actors for a made-for-television movie. These include Robert Cummings as Gidget's father, Paul Lynde as a movie-loving landlord, Nina Foch as her teacher at the UN, and Warner Anderson as an ambassador. In addition to the big name actors, you will enjoy spotting a number of bit-time actors who were busy in television in the late 1960s and 1970s. 

James Sheldon, a veteran TV director, did an excellent job of filming Gidget Grows Up and the musical montages are especially nice. The background music is performed by Jean King who sings "Growing Up" beautifully. You can hear it in this sequence. 

Gidget Grows Up is currently available to watch on DVD, via streaming with Tubi (along with all of the other Gidget films), or for free on Youtube.