
Hollywood’s brightest stars and movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Diminutive teenager Francie Lawrence (Sandra Dee) has a bunch of boy-crazy friends, but she couldn't care less about boys. That is, until she goes to the beach one day and meets surfer Jeffrey Moondoggie Matthews (James Darren) and his friends, including Burt The Big Kahuna Vail (Cliff Robertson). Now, Francie, whom the boys call Gidget -- short for girl midget -- wants to learn how to surf, so she buys a used board and dives into the sunny world of Southern California surfing fever.

When college buddies Ronnie (Kerwin Mathews) and Roy (Alvy Moore) are briefly detained by the Reno police in association with a casino robbery, Ronnie becomes obsessed with figuring out how to plan the perfect heist. At first, it is a strictly intellectual exercise, but when the emotionally disturbed Korean War vet Brick (Brian Keith) gets involved, the friends -- including straitlaced Al (Guy Madison) and his nightclub-singer girlfriend, Kaye (Kim Novak) -- have to pull the job for real.

Distraught when her middle-aged lover breaks a date with her, 21-year-old Toni Simmons (Goldie Hawn) attempts suicide. Impressed by her action, her lover, dentist Julian Winston (Walter Matthau) reconsiders marrying Toni, but he worries about her insistence on honesty. Having fabricated a wife and three children, Julian readily accepts when his devoted nurse, Stephanie (Ingrid Bergman), who has secretly loved Julian for years, offers to act as his wife and demand a divorce.

War widow Janet Ames (Rosalind Russell) is struck by a car, and later her doctors suspect she may have been attempting suicide. A note in her pocket lists five men whom her husband died saving in battle, and they are contacted to help Janet's recovery. The first man on the list, jaded reporter Smitty Cobb (Melvyn Douglas), is offended when Janet says she hopes to prove her husband died in vain to save five worthless men, and offers to "introduce" Janet to each of the men through hypnotism.

Jerry Kingsley (Fredric March) is a wealthy garment manufacturer left lonely in his 60s when his wife dies. Despite the difference in their ages, he strikes up a romance with divorced 24-year-old receptionist Betty (Kim Novak). The relationship is dismissed by his daughter, Lillian (Joan Copeland), discouraged by his sister, Evelyn (Edith Meiser), and denounced by Betty's mother (Glenda Farrell) -- but when Jerry begins to mention marriage, even Betty is forced to confront her ambivalence.

Joey Evans (Frank Sinatra) is a philandering San Francisco-based singer with big dreams of starting his own nightclub, Chez Joey, but chasing women keeps him even more occupied. Despite making a meaningful connection with lovely chorus girl Linda English (Kim Novak), it doesn't stop him from seducing the wealthy widow, and ex-burlesque dancer, Vera Simpson (Rita Hayworth), who he hopes will bankroll his club. Ultimately, Joey has to decide who -- and what -- he most wants in life.

After lonely, middle-aged woman Millicent Wetherby (Joan Crawford) meets the vibrant and young Burt Hanson (Cliff Robertson) at a restaurant, they go out on a date. Although Millicent is wary of their age difference, she eventually marries him. Soon she is shocked to encounter Virginia (Vera Miles), Burt's ex-wife. Virginia claims that Burt is mentally unstable, which is later backed by Burt's father (Lorne Greene). Confused and scared, Millicent tries to learn the truth about her new husband.

Editor Mark Chapman (Broderick Crawford) presides over a trashy but financially successful tabloid newspaper in New York City. With his hotshot crime reporter, Steve McCleary (John Derek), and feature writer, Julie Allison (Donna Reed), Chapman attends a Lonely Hearts Club publicity stunt sponsored by the paper, where he's shocked to run into Charlotte (Rosemary DeCamp), the wife he abandoned two decades before. Their argument takes a violent turn that might ruin everything Chapman has.