Watch Gidget Grows Up For Free

Perfect cast and a good story

Memorable, crazy movie

Load of rubbish!!

Just perfect...

This is a late 60s incarnation of Gidget...with Karen Valentine instead of Sandra Dee, Deborah Walley or Sally Field. In fact, to date 8 different ladies have played this character! Because it's the late 60s, the film has a definite stamp of the era--with groovy (?) music and fashions...as well as a love of the UN and an optimism you'd never see today.When the film begins, Gidget has returned home from a long trip to Europe. During this time, she stupidly send letters to Moondoggie (Paul Peterson) saying she was being wined and dined by a lot of men. He is, not surprisingly, cold towards her and soon announces he's heading off to Greenland...as he's joined the Air Force! Soon Gidget sees the US ambassador to the UN on TV talking about a need for young folks to volunteer to work as 'Peace Heroes'. Well, in typical Gidget fashion, she rushes into this role--with very little forethought...but lots of energy! She eventually finds herself in a training program and seems to fall into the routine rather well (other than practically causing a major incident involving Mobutu). But there is a hitch...she really does love Moondoggie and vice-versa but neither is willing to take the first step. So, in the meantime, she begins dating a man much, much older (Edward Mulhare, who was 46). Can she ever get down to business with Moondoggie or is she destined to marry this nice Aussie (who actually was played by an Irishman)?This is mildly enjoyable BUT with one major warning--the music is often god-awful! There are many musical montages which would make most viewers today ill...very ill. Even for the standards of the day, the music sucked and was very invasive. Apart from that, enjoyable and slight--exactly what you'd expect from a Gidget outing.

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.

Loosely adapted from Frederick Kohner's novel "Gidget Goes New York", This 1969 ABC MOW is remarkable principally for two standout performances: Karen Valentine is excellent as Gidget (of the seven women who have portrayed her in cinema and TV, I rank her second only to Sally Field), and Paul Lynde is hilarious as Louis B. Latimer, Gidget's eccentric and narcissistic landlord. Paul Peterson is alright as Jeff (though sometimes boring), and Robert Cummings is a bit flat as Russ Lawrence. Edward Mulhare seems to think he's in a 1960's soap opera. There are some truly beautiful performances in the smaller parts: Nina Fochs, for example, is magnificent as Mrs.Crosby, Gidget's job trainer (shades of Miss Jean Brodie), and the two girls who play Gidget's roommates are delightful and lovable. The plot is lame, and moves slowly, but Valentine and Lynde do a good job of buoying it. No mention is made of Gidget's mother or sister, perhaps in an attempt to fudge continuity with both the Hollywood movies (no sister Anne) and the 60's sitcom (mother deceased).Gidget fans will enjoy "Gidget Grows Up", but for anyone else it is a slightly above average MOW.

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!).