Operation Petticoat




We sunk a truck!

Despite its fairly decent credentials, I don't know if I'd go so far as to label this one a classic comedy.

The Sea Tiger, an active submarine in the beginning of WWII, gets off to a rocky start when it's attacked and sunk by Japanese fighters in port. With a little prodding, however, Lt. Cmdr. Sherman (Cary Grant) is able to get it raised and limping away. This is only possible through the acquisition of Lt. Holden (Tony Curtis), an excessively sophisticated officer who nonetheless knows how to get needed materials from under the table, or anywhere else for that matter.

That's only the beginning of the Sea Tiger and Sherman's troubles, but it's a good deal into the movie before its main plot point surfaces. Five stranded army nurses are picked up to the crew's delight and general complication to all aspects of the situation. Unfortunately, this is sort of late in coming, as Petticoat spends the beginning more or less waiting around for this, getting off to something of a late start. Being one of Blake Edwards' earlier efforts, this feels every bit like one of his sparse comedies, after the nurses show up that is. Beforehand it's something more akin to a serious movie that doesn't take itself seriously. But the jokes are decent when they begin to come in quantity, and there are a couple that are particularly funny. The script probably wasn't worth an Oscar nomination, but it picks up with the rest of the film and is otherwise fairly clever. Where the film succeeds most strongly is probably in the atmosphere that the arrival and stay of the nurses produces; they are something of an almost bygone era, innocent, yet not really innocent. It's a rare, minority atmosphere at that, as this film shows signs of Hollywood's progression from the Hays Code.

One of the bigger let downs is how dry Cary Grant is at the beginning, which kind of ruins the rest of the movie, even when he perks up with the rest of the material, especially during his stuff with Lt. Crandall (Joan O'Brien), his klutzy nurse/love interest nemesis. Tony Curtis seems like he's having fun, especially playing alongside Grant, his hero, but he's at the mercy of his material. Sometimes it's pretty funny, but sometimes it isn't, especially earlier on.

But it's actually pretty ironic that Tony Curtis would get famous for doing a Cary Grant impersonation in Some Like It Hot, only to get cast in this immediately afterwards.



-The Gnome