James Darren

In 1950's Hawaii, a bigoted and ruthless land baron, with political ambitions, bans his sister from marrying a native Hawaiian even though he himself has secretly impregnated an Asian woman. Rich Hawaiian pineapple grower and US Senatorial candidate Richard Howland tries to control everything and everyone around him, including his headstrong sister, Slone. Howland learns the hard way that money and power cannot buy love and happiness. —Marinelle K. Szenasy Hawaii, 1959. Widowed pineapple plantation owner Richard Howland, often called King for his stature in upper class Hawaiian society, is contemplating the request to run in the newfound state's first election for the US Senate, he almost guaranteed to win if he does run. That request coincides with his younger sister Sloane Howland's return from the mainland, San Francisco, where she was attending college. King and his sister-in-law Laura Beckett, who stayed on at the plantation after her sister's death, have done everything in the goal to pass the plantation on to Sloane when the time comes, especially as King's only offspring, a son, died in the same accident that killed his wife leaving King and Sloane the last in the line of Howlands. Sloane returns with news that she and her childhood friend, Paul Kahana, who was attending the same college, have decided to get married, their relationship which only recently moved from platonic friend status to lovers. King objects to the marriage, not because of Paul being unambitious which he admits, but purely on racial lines as Paul is native Hawaiian, that objection only strengthened in King's political ambition. When she was a teenager, Sloane was on the cusp of embarking on something romantic with Paul's older biracial half-brother, now Dr. Dean Kanaha, they stopping themselves before anything happened. While Paul and Dean's mother, Kapiolani Kahana, also has the same racial objection, she coming from it first hand in her first husband, Dean's father, being white, she does bless the union. Complicating matters is that King is in a secret relationship with Asian Mai Chen, who he could probably admit to himself that he loves but will never marry or consider "family" because of her race. —Huggo

British soldiers are sent on a mission to dismantle two large German guns guarding the Greek island of Navarone and making the evacuation of endangered British troops on a neighboring island impossible.

Frances Lawrence (Sandra Dee) is a socially awkward, 16-year-old girl about to turn 17 and is on her summer break between her junior and senior years of high school. She resists the pressure to go "man-hunting" with her girlfriends and laments the days when the girls had fun together without boys. Frances also rejects her parents wishing to fix her up on a date with the son of a friend of the family, Jeffrey Matthews. On a jaunt to the beach with her bikini-clad girlfriends, flat-chested tomboy Frances meets surfer Moondoggie (James Darren). She quickly becomes infatuated with him, but he shows no romantic interest; however, Frances is more attracted to surfing than man-hunting. At home, Francie importunes her parents for $25 for a used surfboard. Russ and Dorothy Lawrence (Arthur O'Connell and Mary LaRoche) grant their daughter's request as an early birthday present and the excited youngster returns to the beach to surf. The gang dubs their female associate "Gidget," a portmanteau word based on 'girl' and 'midget.' She associates with an all-male surfer gang led by the worldly beach bum, The Big Kahuna (Cliff Robertson). Kahuna, (who's real name is Burt Vail) is a Korean War Air Force veteran twice the age of Frances who was fed up with all the rules he had to live by when he flew combat missions and has dropped out of normal society. He travels the hemisphere surfing with his pet myna bird. Moondoggie admires Kahuna and wants to emulate him by joining Kahuna in working his way on a freighter to go surfing in Peru at summer's end instead of going off to college as his self-made father planned. Over the next few weeks, Kahuna and Gidget enjoy each other's company with Gidget questioning how he can survive an aimless and lonely existence without a job. She questions whether if Kahuna knew then what he knew now would he still make the same lifestyle choice after leaving the Air Force. Kahuna later reflects on Gidget's words after the death of his only friend, the pet bird. Hoping to make Moondoggie jealous, Gidget hires one of the other surfers in the gang to be her date to a luau party on the beach. Her plan backfires when the surfer she hired pawns the job off on none other than Moondoggie, unaware that he was the one Gidget wanted to make jealous. Gidget lies and tells Moondoggie that it is Kahuna that she wants to make jealous, and they have a romantic evening at the luau. Eventually convinced Moondoggie still doesn't consider her as a love interest. So at midnight, she flees the luau, she runs into Kahuna and agrees to take him to a nearby beach house. Alone with Kahuna, Gidget tries to make Kahuna take her virginity. Amused, Kahuna attempts to call Gidget's bluff by pretending to take her up on her offer but finds himself falling under her spell. Realizing what he was about to do and angry at the situation he's been put in, Kahuna throws her out of the beach house just as Moondoggie arrives. Gidget is mortified and escapes out the back door of the beach house as Moondoggie confronts Kahuna. The cops are called to break up the fistfight between Kahuna and Moondoggie and, after leaving the beach house, the police find Gidget stranded with a flat tire and without her driver's license. They bring her in to the police station. Gidget's father, having heard about the incident, decides to take over control of her social life, and orders her not to see the surfer gang again. She falls into a depression, to which mother shows her a tapestry from her grandmother reading "A Real Woman brings out the best in a Man." In the end, Mr. Lawrence arranges a blind date for Gidget with Jeffrey Matthews, the college-age son of a family friend, and Frances grudgingly accepts. To her surprise, Matthews turns out to be none other than Moondoggie. The two return to the beach to find Kahuna tearing down his beach shack and learns out that he's taken a job as an airline pilot. Moondoggie and Gidget realize how they feel about each other and, as an act of romantic devotion, Moondoggie asks Gidget to wear his class pin while he is away at college. Kahuna cheerfully warns Moondoggie that Gidget is quite a woman. Kahuna then goes off to his new career, while Gidget and Moondoggie walk off down the beach together.