Monday, August 13, 2018

Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961), 6

Francine (Gidget) is desperate: her parents want to force her to come with them on vacation to Hawaii - just during the two weeks when her beloved "Moondoggie" is home from College. 
1h 41min | Comedy, Music, Romance | 2 June 1961 | Color, WS
Director: Paul Wendkos
Stars: James Darren, Michael Callan, Deborah Walley, Carl Reiner, Peggy Cass, Eddie Foy Jr., Jeff Donnell.
Roland Dupree ... choreographer

Watched online; mediocre print.

2 songs listed in Soundtracks; same on AFI. But we also get some dance numbers without lyrics.

And the dancing is the big surprise here: Michael Callan dances like a slightly less athletic Gene Nelson. Really good stuff! This and Pepe ('60) are his only music/als, and I don't remember him in Pepe. If I remove the feature film restriction, we gain 1 TV movie: Kiss Me Kate (1968), where he very likely dances, but I don't find it online today.

Otherwise, this is pretty much what you'd expect from a Gidget movie, especially without the original Sandra Dee: meh.

distr. Columbia, dir. Wendkos; 6