In the mid-60s, beach movies were all the rage. The super-specific subgenre was an early iteration of the coming-of-age movie, but in place of any real depth or story, its plots often focused on adolescent fun. They typically featured music, dancing, bright colors, and light romantic and comedic hijinks. At their most complex, the teen beach movies came across as a discordant mix of the sanitized family cinema of the ’50s and the youth-in-revolt transgressiveness of ’70s film — slightly wholesome, but slightly countercultural.
The 1963 movie “Beach Party” is often credited with popularizing the mini-genre, and after its success, plenty of imitators were churned out in quick succession. Among them is “For Those Who Think Young,” a relatively forgotten movie that’s best-known as Nancy Sinatra’s film debut. It wasn’t just Sinatra who made waves on screen, though; the movie also starred Tina Louise and Bob Denver, who would go on to play Ginger and Gilligan on the hit TV show “Gilligan’s Island” just a few months later.
“Gilligan’s Island” hit the airwaves in late September 1964, three months after “For Those Who Think Young” kicked off the summer season. Directed by Leslie H. Martinson, the movie is never connected to the “Gilligan” mythology in stories about the show’s creation, but it did share two key elements (besides Louise and Denver). Both “Gilligan’s Island” and “For Those Who Think Young” were produced by United Artists, and the co-writer of the beach party flick, George O’Hanlon, would go on to pen two episodes of “Gilligan’s Island.” Casting for the TV show was no doubt complete by the time the movie hit theaters.
For Those Who Think Young kicked off the summer of 1964
In a trailer for “For Those Who Think Young” shared to YouTube by Rob’s Dream Theater, Denver is given a special introductory credit of sorts; when he appears alongside Nancy Sinatra, meditating with her on the sandy shore (“Are you sure this is the way they make love in India?” she asks, a sampling of the movie’s “comedy”), his name pops up alongside the parenthetical note, “He’s Dobie Gillis’ Maynard.” This was a reminder to audiences that they’d seen Denver before in the early teen sitcom “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.” In it, Denver played beatnik Maynard G. Krebs, and he seems to embody a rather Maynard-like role in the beach movie, too. Louise, meanwhile, plays a singer who does a Marilyn Monroe-like outfit change on stage.
“Gilligan’s Island” creator Sherwood Schwartz would later admit that he didn’t think Denver was right for the role of Gilligan based on his “Dobie Gillis” role, writing in his memoir “Inside Gilligan’s Island”:
“I had never met Bob Denver. I knew Bob only from his role as Maynard G. Crebs on ‘Dobie Gillis.’ It never occurred to me to connect the bearded beatnik and his hip talk with my image of Gilligan. Like many producers, casting directors, and executives, I fell temporary victim to the evils of typecasting. Bob Denver was not my first choice for Gilligan.”
It’s, by all accounts, not very good
Schwartz doesn’t mention “For Those Who Think Young” in that book, which makes sense: the movie didn’t live long in the cultural imagination. Its box office earnings don’t seem to be on the record, and it’s rarely cited, even in conversations about teen beach movies. It has zero critical reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and lackluster viewer reviews. It is, however, available to stream on Prime Video with the MGM+ add-on. “The semester is in full swing at Oceancrest College,” that site’s plot description reads, “and when their after school hangout, the Silver Palms, is threatened by a wealthy conservative with foreclosure, a group of teenagers resorts to blackmail in order to keep it open.” Its original trailer has a different tagline, calling it “a frolic dedicated to those who are dedicated to the pursuit of each other.”
Judging by the trailer, there’s also some singing, burying people in the sand, and smooching. If you want to see Gilligan and Ginger before they were Gilligan and Ginger, you can check out “For Those Who Think Young,” but if you choose to skip it and simply revisit the classic sitcom’s island instead, you probably won’t miss much.