OPERATION PETTICOAT
US, 1959, 124 minutes, Colour.
Cary Grant, Tony Curtis, Joan O’ Brien, Dina Merrill, Gene Evans, Arthur O'Connell, Richard Sargent.
Directed by Blake Edwards.
Operation Petticoat was a popular success of the late '50s, a star vehicle for Cary Grant and for an emerging Tony Curtis. (Tony Curtis had imitated Cary Grant's manner and speech patterns in Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot that year - to excellent effect.)
The film was written by Stanley Shapiro and Morris Richlin and won an Oscar nomination. Shapiro wrote vehicles for Doris Day including Pillow Talk, Lover Come Back, That Touch of Mink. The film was directed by Blake Edwards who was emerging as a top director after his successful career as a writer. Her had worked with Curtis in Mister Cory and to work with him in The Great Race. Cary Grant and Curtis work together admirably in a film which is one of those memoirs about World War Two - With a certain amount of slapstick and broad comedy. It was the basis of a later television series starring Tony Curtis's daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis.
1. Entertaining American comedy? Service comedy?
2. War memoir? Production values: the stars, colour photography, the atmosphere of the Navy? Musical score?
3. The title and the humour? The Sea Tiger and its World War Two experiences? The painting of it pink? The underwear jokes? Indication of humour and style?
4. Admiral Sherman and his visit to the submarine? The decision for it to be scrapped? His looking at the Captain's Journal? The memoirs of the early days of the war? The ship being sunk in Manila? His persuading those in charge to give him a fortnight to recondition the submarine? The plans, Sherman's relationship with Lieutenant Nick Holden? Holden's way of scavenging? Getting everything needed? The comedy in getting the supplies? The painting of the submarine pink? The success of the reconditioning? The journey to Darwin? The island repairs? The nurses? Sherman presiding over the romantic comedy? The mistake by the American destroyer? The attack? Nick saving the submarine by using the nurses' underwear? His memories? Nostalgia? Friendship with Nick? His going to meet the new Commander - Nick? The ex-nurses as wives? Cary Grant's suave style in this kind of role?
5. Tony Curtis and his brashness as Nick? Playboy background? Charm with the women? Scavenging - and the comic devices to get all that was needed? The painting of the submarine? The nurses? Romance and sex comedy? His ingenious saving of the submarine from the attack by the destroyer? His finally being the Commander - to escort the ship to the junkyard? Tony Curtis's comic style?
6. The presentation of the crew - the various personnel, their behaviour on ship, helping with the scavenging, repairing the ship? Their functions for the effective work of the submarine? The romantic entanglements with the new arrivals?
7. The nurses, their being stranded, coming on board, complications for billeting, the jokes about underwear? Romantic entanglements?
8. The stances of authority? and their war activities?
The send-up of the American services
9. Verbal and visual humour? Popular style?
