Blake Edwards’ slick, often funny military comedy, Operation Petticoat, starring Cary Grant and Tony Curtis, was one of the year’s most popular films.
Grade: B
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Theatrical release
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Occupying the year’s third position as top-grosser, the movie followed Hitchcock’s Psycho, which made $8.5 million in rentals in its initial run.
Grant, whose contract stipulated points and residuals, reportedly made more than $3 million, making this comedy his most profitable film to date in what was already a long and brilliant career.
Stanley Shapiro and Maurice Richlin’s scenario, based on a story by Paul King and Joseph Stone, received an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay, but it did not win (see below).
The film tells in flashback the misadventures of a fictional U.S. Navy submarine, USS Sea Tiger, during the Battle of the Philippines in the opening days of the United States involvement in World War II; it sunk in the Philippine Islands.
The Navy is prepared to write off the damaged submarine, anchored in Manila.
Cary Grant stars as Sherman, the submarine’s skipper, who along with his crew tries to repair the sub and then reach Australia for a refit. The voyage includes detours along the way, including the acquisition of a group of stranded female Army nurses, an attempt to sink a Japanese ship, and a hurried stopover to overhaul and repaint the sub which quickly goes awry.
In a multi-generation plot, Grant is contrasted with Tony Curtis, who plays Holden, an admiral’s aide who turns ou to be a smart mercenary supply officer. Though lacking skills, Holden proves resourceful as a procurement officer, when he befriends with Ramon, a local crook who ‘s able to swipe everything necessary to get the ship on its way.
Though he gets many laughs, in this comedy, Grant (under)plays the straight part and Curtis gets the juicier and flashier.
Even so, Grant shines throughout, holding the entire picture on his robust shoulders, getting laughs from gestures and reactions of being blank and startled, rather than from witty lines of dialogue.
Under the smooth and assured direction of Blake Edwards (who would do “The Pink Panther” comedies with Peter Sellers in 1960s and 1970s), the whole cast is good, particularly the men.
Some of the film’s events and characters are inspired by true facts and real people, but the plot is so well structured and outlandish and in its outrageous happenings that it becomes irrelevant just how much realism was inserted into the proceedings.
The Department of Defense and the Navy supported the production, which was shot around Florida’s Naval Station Key West, standing in for the Philippines, and California’s Naval Station San Diego.
Cast of Would Be TV Stars
The cast include several actors who went on to become TV tstars in the 1960s and 1970s: Gavin MacLeod of The Love Boat and McHale’s Navy, Marion Ross of Happy Days, Frank Sutton of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. and Dick Sargent of Bewitched.
Women Aboard Wartime Submarine
The N.Y. Times critic Bosley Crowther was critical in his December 8, 1959 review, noting that the plot device of women aboard a wartime submarine was strained. “That is the obvious complication upon which are pointedly based at least 60 per cent of the witticisms and sight gags in the film. How to berth the nurses in the exceedingly limited space, how to explain to them the functioning of the bathroom facilities, how to compel the sailors to keep their well-diverted minds on their work–these are the endless petty problems that vex Commander Grant.”
Recycling: TV Series (1977-1979)
Operation Petticoat was so popular that it was adapted into a TV series, which ran from 1977 to 1979, starring John Astin in Cary Grant’s role of Lieutenant Commander Sherman, and Tony Curtis’ own daughter Jamie Lee Curtis as Lieutenant Duran, the female nurse that Curtis’s character has married in the 1959 picture.
Most of the cast was replaced in the second season, and after low ratings and 24 episodes, the show was removed off the air.
Oscar Alert
Oscar Nominations: 1
Story and Screenplay (Original): Paul King and Joseph Stone; Stanley Shapiro and Maurice Richlin.
Oscar Context
The winners were Stanley Shapiro and Maurice Richlin, who were also nominated for the Doris Day-Rock Hudson comedy, “Pillow Talk.” The other nominees were Ingmar Bergman for “Wild Strawberries,” Francois Truffaut for “The 400 Blows,” and Ernest Lehman for Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest.”
Cary Grant, Lieutenant Commander Matthew T. “Matt” Sherman, USN
Tony Curtis, Lieutenant, Junior Grade (later Commander) Nicholas “Nick” Holden, USNR (later USN)
Virginia Gregg as Major Edna Heywood, NC, US Army
Joan O’Brien as Second Lieutenant Dolores Crandall, NC, USAR
Dina Merrill as Second Lieutenant Barbara Duran, NC, USAR
Madlyn Rhue as Second Lieutenant Reid, NC, USAR
Marion Ross as Second Lieutenant Colfax, NC, USAR
Robert F. Simon as Captain J.B. Henderson, USN
Robert Gist as Lieutenant Watson, USN, Sherman’s Exec Officer
Dick Sargent as Ensign Stovall, USN (billed as Richard Sargent)
Arthur O’Connell as Chief Motor Machinist’s Mate Sam Tostin, USN
Gene Evans as Chief Torpedoman “Mo” Molumphry, USN, Chief of the Boat of the Sea Tiger
Frankie Darro as Pharmacist’s Mate 3rd Class Dooley, USN
Gavin MacLeod as Yeoman Ernest Hunkle, USN
Nicky Blair as Seaman Kraus, USN
Ray Austin as Seaman Austin, USN
George Dunn as The Prophet (of Doom)
Dick Crockett as Petty Officer Harmon, USN
Clarence Lung as Sergeant Ramon Gallardo, USMC
Tony Pastor, Jr. as Fox
Robert F. Hoy as Reiner
Lonnie Magargle as Williams
