Similarities Between "Dirty Dancing" and "Gidget"

This article follows up my earlier article titled Gidget Goes to Rome.

In that earlier article, I pointed out similarities between Dirty Dancing and Gidget Goes Hawaiian, a movie that was released in 1961. The latter movie takes place when 17-year-old Frances "Gidget" Lawrence goes on a vacation with her older sister and parents to a resort in Hawaii. There, Gidget has a brief romance with a professional dancer. The film features a dramatic dance scene in which Gidget wears a pink chiffon dress and is lifted high into the air by her dancer-boyfriend.

Gidget dances with her new boyfriend during a
family vacation in "Gidget Goes Hawaiian"

Gidget's vacation boyfriend, a professional dancer, lifts her
into the air while she wears a pink chiffon dress.

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Eleanor Bergstein, the screenwriter of Dirty Dancing was born in 1938. She was about 19 years old in 1957, when the novel Gidget: The Little Girl With Big Ideas was published and was about 21 years old in April 1959 when the movie Gidget was released.

"Gidget: The Little Girl With Big Ideas",
a popular novel published in 1957,
when Eleanor Bergstein was 19 years old 

The movie earned about $4.3 million at the box office in 1959. (That would be about $36.2 million in current dollars.) The movie was the 50th most-earning movie in 1959.

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Recently the Turner Classic Movies television channel broadcast the 1959 movie Gidget, and so I watched it. Here I will point out the following elements.

Frances Lawrence is almost 17 years old. She is in the summer between her junior and senior year of high school. She has one older sister, who is a year or two older.

Frances is an excellent, ambitious student who loves to read. At the movie's beginning, she is disdainful of other teenage girls who focus their attention on attracting boys. Frances has no interest in getting a boyfriend.

Frances sees some boys surfing and decides to learn the sport. She begs her father for $25 to buy a surfboard. After a serious discussion with her father, he lends her the necessary $25 as an early present for her imminent 17th birthday.

The surfer boys give Frances a nickname "Gidget" -- a combination of the words "girl" and "midget". After she gets this nickname, she never is called Frances any more.

Frances gets the nickname "Gidget" because she is small and cute.

Gidget gradually improves her surfing skill by practicing with a surfer boy, nicknamed Moondoggie ...

Gidget learns to surf from an older, experienced surfer, Moondoggie

... and also by practicing by herself.

Gidget practices surfing all the time, even in her bedroom.

Moondoggie does not want to go to college and does not know what he wants to do with his life. Nevertheless, the bookish Gidget finds herself falling in love with him.

Gidget, a book-worm, falls in love with
Moondoggie, who does not want to attend college.

In order to attract Moondoggie's romantic interest, Gidget gradually dresses in a more sexual manner, favoring crop-top blouses and feminine pinkish dresses.

via GIPHY

Gidget has a falling-out with her father about her budding romantic relationship.

Gidget's father becomes concerned about
Gidget's new passion for an older boy.

Despite her father's concern, Gidget becomes quite aggressive in trying to seduce Moondoggie into a sexual relationship. She schemes to get alone with Moondoggie in a secluded location so that he will take her virginity. (She does not, however, lose her virginity during the movie.)

Toward the end of the movie, it seems that Gidget and Moondoggie will part forever, but then they are reunited in an unexpected plot twist. Both of Gidget's parents are pleased with Moondoggie.

Gidget's parents learn that Moondoggie is an
admirable man, worthy of Gidget's romantic interest

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The actress Sandra Dee, the star of Gidget, is mentioned in Dirty Dancing. In the scene where female guests are trying on wigs, a loundspeaker announces.

Ladies, join our hair-raising wig show. Try your Sandra Dee, Jackie Kennedy or Elizabeth-Taylor Cleopatra wig.

Sandra Dee's hair was adorable!