Sandra Dee Movies
American actress Sandra Dee began her career as a model at age 12, and later moved on to TV commercials. Her film break came when producer Ross Hunter balked at Natalie Wood's lofty salary demands and decided to use a newcomer to play Lana Turner's daughter in Imitation of Life (1959). The result for Dee was a long-term contract at Universal, although one of her biggest moneymakers was the 1959 Warner Bros. film A Summer Place. In 1961, Dee married singer/actor Bobby Darin, with whom she appeared in three lightweight but money-making comedies. After her divorce from Darin in 1967, Dee could no longer convey her patented perky-teen charm, and her career began a downhill slide, although the decline was occasionally slowed a bit by such curious highlights as the pseudo-hip sex comedy Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding (1967) and the nail-biting psychological scare film The Dunwich Horror (1970). Out of movies completely by 1971, Dee retreated to private life, occasionally popping up on TV and granting interviews with nostalgia-happy young film buffs. Much of the actress' latter-day fame rested upon a single song in the Broadway smash Grease: the satiric, 1950s-style, rock ballad titled "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1959
Teenager Francie Lawrence (Sandra Dee) is known to her surfing friends as "Gidget" or a "girl midget" (she is kinda on the short side). Unable to compete with the curvaceous bikinied lasses at the local beach, Gidget is assured by her understanding parents (Arthur O'Connell, Mary LaRoche) that boys will eventually pay attention to her. Turns out that Mom's right on the money, as surfers Moondoggie (James Darren) and Kahoona (Cliff Robertson) vie for Gidge's attention during the summer of her 16th birthday. Based on the novel by Frederick Kohner (who based the title character on his own daughter), Gidget was one of the surprise hits of 1959. The film spawned a host of theatrical and TV-movie sequels, not to mention the 1966 TV series starring Sally Field -- and the 1987 sitcom starring Caryn Richman. In addition, Gidget boosted the careers of several stars-to-be, including Yvonne Craig, Doug McClure and Tom Laughlin. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sandra Dee, Cliff Robertson, (more)
- 1959
- NR
American live-action footage frames this animated feature from the USSR, and the cartoon characters' voices are also dubbed in English. The Snow Queen is a Hans Christian Andersen fable about a cold-hearted queen of the frozen north (voice by Louise Arthur) who steals away young Kay (voice by Tommy Kirk) and takes him to her ice palace. Kay's friend Gerda (voice by Sandra Dee) gets worried when Kay does not come home, and so she sets out to find him. Along the way, she meets an eccentric flower woman, a Prince and a Princess, a magical reindeer, a talking Court raven, and many other fantastic characters. Once Gerda discovers that Kay is in the Snow Queen's palace, she has to find some way to save him in spite of the formidable Queen. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
The Jorgensons are a wealthy family spending the summer on a resort island. Ken (Richard Egan), Helen (Constance Ford) and daughter Molly (Sandra Dee) settle in to a beach house on the island where Ken was a young lifeguard twenty years ago. He rediscovers Sylvia (Dorothy McGuire), with whom he had an earlier affair before she married Bart Hunter (Arthur Kennedy). The Hunter's son Johnny (Troy Donahue) and Molly fall in love, much to the objection of her mother, a cold and cynical woman. When Ken and Sylvia start another torrid affair, the exposure of the liaison leads to the divorce of both married couples. After Johnny and Molly are stranded overnight on a beach, Molly is forced by her heartless mistrusting mother to undergo a physical examination and a pregnancy test. Tests results are negative, but more negative is the mother-daughter relationship. Ken and Sylvia get married and Molly gets pregnant. The newlyweds then compassionately guide unwed couple to marriage. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Egan, Dorothy McGuire, (more)
- 1958
Small-minded small town 1950's mores threaten a youthful romance in this sudsy melodrama based on the play Teach Me How to Cry by Patricia Joudry and reminiscent of the previous year's Peyton Place (1957). Sandra Dee stars as Melinda Grant, an illegitimate girl facing the stigma of being a fatherless child in the rigidly judgmental atmosphere of her hometown. Melinda's problems are further compounded by the fact that her mother Elizabeth (Teresa Wright) is a neurotic woman slowly losing her mental grip. Then Melinda meets Will Henderson (John Saxon), the new boy in town, and the two fall in love. Will is from the wrong side of the tracks, however, and his down-on-his-luck father Ed (James Whitmore) doesn't do much to improve the family's reputation. Local tongues are soon wagging over the Melinda-Will romance, casting its future in doubt. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Saxon, Sandra Dee, (more)
- 1958
The Reluctant Debutante is a vintage example of the sort of elegant, witty "polite" comedy that Hollywood used to pull off so well. Real-life husband and wife Rex Harrison and Kay Kendall are cast as newly wed Jimmy and Sheila Broadbent, two of London's more attractive aristocrats. Jimmy has a daughter, Jane (Sandra Dee), from a previous marriage; though the girl is dead set against it, Jimmy insists that Jane make her society debut in London. Daddy wants his darling daughter to meet the "right" kind of husband, but she's more interested in handsome-but-shady American musician David Parkson (John Saxon). Little does anyone know that David, secretly a titled millionaire, is actually the prize catch of the season. The matchless Kay Kendall manages to walk away with the picture, though she's given a run for her money by fifth-billed Angela Lansbury. The Reluctant Debutante was based on the play by William Douglas Home. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rex Harrison, Kay Kendall, (more)
- 1957
- NR
Adapted by Robert Anderson from a story by James A. Michener, the Robert Wise-directed soaper Until They Sail is set in World-War-II New Zealand. Paul Newman plays been-there-done-that U.S. marine captain Jack Harding, assigned to investigate servicemen's requests to marry local girls. An unemotional cipher, Harding begins to warm up when he meets war widow Barbara Leslie Forbes (Jean Simmons), a woman with three sisters (played by Joan Fontaine, Piper Laurie, and Sandra Dee -- what a gene pool!). The Newman-Simmons relationship is played against the romance between uptight spinster Anne Leslie (Fontaine) and good-natured officer Richard Bates (Charles Drake), and the dysfunctional marriage between the emotionally desperate (and nymphomaniacal) Delia Leslie (Laurie) and slimy Shiner Friskett (Wally Cassell), who is off in battle. The fourth sister, Evelyn (Dee), watches her sisters' amorous pursuits longingly, her mind occupied by her own true love, who is off to war. Until They Sail was a copacetic reunion between star Newman and director Robert Wise, who'd previously collaborated in Somebody Up There Likes Me. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Simmons, Joan Fontaine, (more)
