The casting director for Elvis movies in the sixties must have been impressed by this movie!

The next year, 1964 Cesare Danova was featured in Viva Las Vegas as Count Elmo Mancini. The race car driver/ playboy competing in the race and off the track for Ann Margret.

Peter Brooks and Joby Baker appeared in Girl Happy the next year. 1965. Brooks as a nerd around the motel (who morphs into Nita Talbot's date in the finale). And Baker is a buddy who played in Elvis's band. And shares in the hijinx.

The Gidget movie was intended to show the character as more mature and growing into a young adult. Beach scenes and family interaction were quickly disposed of in the first ten minutes. And the teenage romance/courtship dynamics of the earlier films was pretty much suspended as each lead pursued other potentially romantic partners for the bulk of the story.

The reunited ending was totally predictable. What else could it have been given the light comedic theme of the plot.

James Darren was in his prime then. On the charts in the early sixties he had a number of hit singles. Including Goodbye Cruel World and Her Royal Majesty amongst many others. He was in a handful of teen oriented films. And in a couple of years would star in the Time Tunnel sci Fi TV show.

All in all it was a nice enough bright, vivid time capsule of an early sixties milieu. And a view of a fun stereotypical tourist first visit to Rome. Hardly a memorable or captivating movie, but it did what it was intended to. Move Gidget off the beach and appeal to a familiar demographic.

Simple, innocent fluff that does build on the earlier Gidget mythos. The TV series actually is the best representation but has more time to expand on character and stories.

And as a footnote. Noreen Corcoran had just finished playing the teen daughter in the sitcom Bachelor Father.