Operation Petticoat
by Blake Edwards
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Cary Grant, Dina Merrill, Gene Evans, Joan O'Brien, Tony CurtisDirector: Blake Edwards
Brand: Lions Gate
Cinematographer: Russell Harlan
Editor: Frank Gross
Producer: Robert Arthur
Writer: Joseph Stone
Writer: Maurice Richlin
Writer: Paul King
Writer: Stanley Shapiro
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: French (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 124 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-09-18
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Republic Pictures
Movie Reviews of Operation Petticoat
Movie Review: You almost can't say enough nice things about this film
Summary: 5 Stars
What can I say? Directed by Blake Edwards (best known for the "Pink Panther" series), a clever, expertly wrought comedy loaded with visual humor as well plenty of dry wisecracks and miscellaneous innuendo for the veteran cast to chew on, it requires few allowances be made by the audience. No doubt very loosely inspired by the real-life adventures of the U.S. submarines SEALION, SEADRAGON, and SPEARFISH, not to mention humerous anecdotes adopted from other submarines, and technically advised by retired wartime submarine commander Rear Admiral Lucius M. Chappel, in a "funny" and sometimes subtle way it is probably the most realistic movie about US submarines in World War II I've seen. It is certainly the most well-made and entertaining. Premise: right after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese prepare to assault the Philippine Islands, and during an air raid on US Navy facilties there, sink the virtually new submarine SEA TIGER. Nonetheless, her only appropriately serious and generally very human commander, Matt Sherman - done very credibly by Cary Grant - is too much of a firebreather to take this lying down. After persuading his boss, the squadron commodore, to let him take a shot at it, he and his ship's company - reduced by transfers due to the boat's sunken condition - manage to raise her from the harbor bottom and commence getting her into good enough shape to escape to Australia before the inevitable Japanese invasion. Unfortunately their repair job, daunting enough already, is impossibly hampered by an apparently bureaucratically-based shortage of critical spare parts and supplies - even toilet paper (a gag in the film derived nearly verbatim from the true experience of the submarine SKIPJACK). At this point Tony Curtis enters as Lt. Nick Holden, the character's name likely-enough suggested by actor William Holden's patented self-indugent bad-boy persona. Having grown up in a neighborhood called "Noah's Ark" ("you traveled in pairs or you just didn't travel"), our Lt. Holden is a journeyman back-alley maneuverer who joined the Navy for the prestige associated with the uniform and what it can get him (in particular, a certain Miss "Super Chief"). His plans have gone horribly awry by the sudden outbreak of the war, leaving him an admiral's aid stranded in Manila without his admiral; being at loose ends he is assigned as a replacement officer to the SEA TIGER. Facing the alternative of being stuck on Bataan to endure the oncoming Japanese onslaught, he sees it is in his best interest to make up for the seagoing experience he has managed to avoid during his time in the Navy by becoming the boat's Supply Officer and securing everything the captain needs to get "the . . . submarine" out of there and to someplace where he can get a better deal. Dedicated to his responsibilities as the boat's commander, Captain Sherman is willing to make "a pact with the Devil" and thus Lt. Holden, allied with his handpicked detail of "scavengers" - Seaman Hunkle (Gavin McLeod), a sailor only known as "The Prophet [of Doom]," and of course the trusty marine Sargeant Ramon Gallardo ("there isn't a thief, pickpocket, or fence in the islands that doesn't know, love, and respect him") - commences a supply procurement program which might most charitably be described unorthodox (or less charitably as felonious). But he really hits his peak when he manages to "scavenge" five stranded Army nurses and convince the captain that he has to take them aboard. From then on the film becomes Cary Grant's battle to get his sputtering, groaning, band-aid patched submarine safely to Australia while avoiding any "exchange of information" concerning the birds and the bees between the crew and their passengers. It's a battle made all the more complicated by his frequent personal run-ins with an accident-prone and especially buxom young nurse (in the words of the "Chief of the Boat" - "if you wanna know what you're fightin' for - there's your answer") who for all her blunders unintentionally winds up saving the boat and all aboard. Oh, and along the way they manage to wind up with the vessel painted pink (don't ask me how - just try to believe I actually saw a nearly identical performance to the COB's in reaction to a similar problem aboard a nuclear ballistic missile submarine around 1980), have to set up a maternity ward, complete with goat ("the children will need fresh milk"), and accomplish the unique induction of "Seaman Hornsby" into his brief tenure in the Naval Service. The film is actually told as a flashback from about 1960 and ends with a slighlty sentimental and amusing bit of a twist. Clean and wholesome while still being thoroughly adult ("when a man is tired and irritable you can be sure there's one thing he's not getting enough of") this one you can watch with your kids - maybe even after they've reached ther cynical teenaged years.
Summary of Operation Petticoat
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