Operation Petticoat

Matt Sherman (Cary Grant) is skipper of the U.S.S. Sea Tiger, a submarine forced out to sea by an enemy air attack. He is less than impressed by his newly-arrived junior officer, Lieutenant Nick Holden (Tony Curtis), who nevertheless manages to scavenge the spare parts and supplies needed to keep the sub in action. Matters are complicated when five stranded army nurses are taken on board, and assist with the renovation. Through a series of mishaps, Sherman’s command ends up being painted a conspicuous shade of pink!
Blake Edwards’s delightful 1959 comedy stars Cary Grant as a World War II submarine captain whose preference for a by-the-book command reluctantly yields to certain realities. Chief among those is that Grant’s first officer (Tony Curtis, who impersonated Grant that same year in Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot), a shameless hustler, is better than the navy at delivering whatever supplies the ship and crew need to keep going. But when Curtis sneaks a handful of Philippine refugees and several gorgeous nurses onto the all-male sub, the skipper not only has to cool down his crew but deal with an unexpected feminine influence on ship protocol. The film is a great deal of fun, sprinkled with the director’s trademark sight gags (including one of Edwards’s best, involving a torpedo and jeep), and graced with his unmistakable lilt. Grant is in great form, his comic brilliance almost impossibly effortless. –Tom Keogh