Operation Petticoat (1959)

The party on board Cary Grant became typecast as a mature character who was constantly being put in embarrassing situations, and his mannerisms became famous. Nowadays this kind of humour looks rather smug and self indulgent, and this film has not aged well. Grant is a submarine commanding officer in World War 2 -- at the age of 55 this is pretty-well impossible in wartime. Among other embarrassments, a party of army nurses come on board.


The man in a dress During a party on deck after the submarine has been painted pink, one of the sailors is wearing a short dress. Sailors - especially submariners - were in the habit of going pretty wild when the opportunity for relaxation was possible. It is a dress (and not just a makeshift version of far eastern men's wrap-round clothing) and you can see that he has false breasts.

In one print of the film I have seen, this party sequence has been cut -- the full length of the film is over two hours, and any substantially shorter version will probably not show this.

HF May 2007


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