Operation Petticoat (1959)

You won't be disappointed!

Wow! Such a good movie.

Sadly Over-hyped

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Always liked Cary Grant and Tony Curtis, and for me they were very good in comedies, they had such a natural talent in this genre. And Blake Edwards is one of the best directors that ever directed them.This movie is set in December 1941. Commander Matt Sherman is a submarine captain. When the submarine is damaged, the crew manages to repair it. Then arrives a supply officer, Lt. Nick Holden, a officer with no naval experience at all. Then the submarine goes to Australia, and then on a deserted island, but with only five nurses, and then trouble begins! I liked especially the scene when the submarine stops near Korea and Curtis has to steal a pig from a farm and with a coat and the help of another sailor, arrive safe at the submarine.The cast is good, especially the Grant-Curtis team, and also the supporting actors: Dick Sargent, Dina Merrill, Arthur O'Connell and Joan O'Brien.Worth seeing for the cast and laughter is assured!

Cary Grant and Tony Curtis teams up in this one of a kind comedy about a submarine at sea during WWII.Submarine Sea Tiger docked at harbor gets attacked by the Japanese, and nearly sinks. The newly appointed executive officer Lt. Holden (Tony Curtis) knows nothing about seamanship, but knows plenty about how to get in the back door of the supply room. The sub is ready to ship out, but not quite shipshape. While going ashore on an island, they discover American women stranded there, and brings them aboard. Plenty of mishaps, and misadventure follows the crew of the submarine. This includes being hunted by US destroyer thinking that the submarine painted in pink is an enemy vessel.This frequently seen movie never seems to get old. The humor still works in the 21st century. Performance of Cary Grant, and Tony Curtis is one of the best. Scenery set in the south pacific is also beautiful.One of the finest comedy from the '50s and one of the best comedy Cary Grant and Tony Curtis starred in.

The message Cary Grant, in complete frustration at red tape, requisitions toilet paper for the Sea Tiger is almost word for word from an actual sardonically-toned requisition from a USS sub commander in WWII to HQ (CINCPAC). I don't have the book nearby, but in "Submarine", Commander Edward L. Beach (of "Run Silent, Run Deep" fame) recounts the famous incident.After this Skipper's message was received, he got his toilet paper. More than he may have expected. Every time thereafter that his sub returned to Pearl Harbor from patrol, instead of the mounds of meat, fruit, and ice cream that greeted the sequestered crews of other returning subs at the dock, there were disappointingly only mounds of rolls of toilet paper.Some viewers may see a double entendre in the context of the film where ladies are aboard on a pink submarine. Edwards and Blatty probably were also aware of this because sexual innuendoes abound in the film - and might I say in good taste - although in their other later collaborations, the taste may have gotten lost on a few occasions.But, do appreciate that an older USS sub (SS-23? 22? 21? 20? etc...) undergoing retrofit in the US Navy around December 1941 in the South Pacific did have a rust colored primer coat applied to it prior to its final coat of gray. However, after Pearl Harbor, the finishing gray paint became unavailable or the sub had no time to have the finishing coat applied, and had to enter war service with only its primer coat. Because of the rusty color of the primer, it often looked pink, especially in grand Pacific sunsets. Therefore, you actually had a US sub on patrol in the early days of WWII that was, in effect, pink.Blake Edwards also knew the Navy because he served in it during WWII. The characters, Sherman and Holden, Cary Grant and Tony Curtis respectively, might just be akin to Edwards' alter egos since Blake was in the fight as a swab jockey.Extra stuff: Crews on USS subs were "hand-picked" for their advanced aptitude in engineering and mechanics. Collectively, on one US sub in WWII, you probably had quite a few geniuses in service. Each man could operate any function on the boat should one have become incapacitated. They CYA'd very well. "Pig Boats" is another great book to learn of the US Silent Service during WWII."Through Hell and Deep Water" recounts the contributions of a Texas-bred submarine skipper to the Pacific campaign. Sam Dealey was renowned for his "down the throat" torpedo kills of Japanese destroyers, a major plot point in the film version of "Run Silent, Run Deep".Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas was named after the family from which Sam Dealey was a member. Unfortunately, the main legacy of the name Dealey now relates to the location of the assassination of an American President, not to Sam's Silent Service.At highest rank an XO on the first "Trigger", Beach's sub was also retroactively fitted with an ice cream maker by some of its crew. In those years, ice cream was a most cherished commodity in American society.A strange phenomenon would actually occur to some US crews of sunken vessels and left adrift for days asea. After their boats had been sunk, having been drifting in the merciless sun of the Pacific, air-blasted with sea salt, and suffering from hypothermia in Pacific warm waters still lower than their own body temperature, some sailors would begin hallucinating of mirages of islands made of ice cream, and set a swimming course to them. Some of their less-affected, but still exhausted, mates would try to stop them, but weakness prevented any action. These young sailors would swim to the mirage of ice cream, and eventually disappeared with it.

This is one of my very favorite movies. I now own the DVD, but have watched it who knows how many times since childhood. "Operation Petticoat" never fails to make me laugh. I don't have to give a synopsis here, since so many viewers before have summed it up nicely, but I wanted to throw in my two cents. This movie is a perfect illustration of the notion that funny and filthy are not necessarily synonymous. Parents can watch this movie with their children and not be afraid of what their children are hearing or seeing. The writers have produced a script that is funny, without pandering to the lowest common denominator. The humor is a cut above, but easily understood by most viewers. Other viewers have rightly praised Cary Grant's and Tony Curtis' performances. However, there are some other gems, not the least of which is Arthur O'Connell as the machinist's mate. "Have a piece of pig, Major." Gavin MacLeod as the beleaguered clerk, Hunkle; Dick Sergeant's Ensign Stovall; and George Dunn as the Prophet, singing his plaintive tune "You can't win, my friend" and predicting the early demise of Lt. Holden as they go scrounging for supplies. It doesn't matter how low I'm feeling--this movie gives me a lift. It does not gloss over the deadly seriousness of war, but does show the truth that funny things often happen in the midst of the greatest chaos. In fact, to quote Nick Holden, "In confusion, there is profit." And a great deal of laughter.