BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

Console best movie i've ever seen.

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

weezeralfalfa This Cary Grant-Tony Curtis naval comedy falls within the typical comedy format for each. It's periodically amusing, but with few belly laughers. The caper with the stolen pig is probably the funniest. If you generally like Cary or Tony comedies, check it out. Most Cary comedies rather late in his career are too tame for me. This one is an exception. Tony is up to his usual tricks, with and without women, and Cary, as the sub skipper, is presented with an endless variety of embarrassing or critical situations. A group of women forced to live for some weeks on a submarine with very cramped quarters and no provision for the possibility of a handful of women passengers will naturally create some embarrassing situations, which is the main source of humor. The unplanned painting of the sub pink heightens the impression of a substantial feminine presence on this sub. The very flakey operational condition of the sub, with motors backfiring and barely functioning, provides part of the humor, as does Tony's imaginative methods of obtaining critical supplies and parts. Tony's inexperience with subs and shipboard operations in general, means he begins as an underdog, proving his worth with his facility for finagling supplies from warehouses, etc..According to the Wikipedia site for this film, a number of incidents are based on actual events during WWII. For example, USS Bowfin managed to torpedo a bus instead of its target. The toilet paper requisition caper is also based on an actual happening. The heat from a burning sub scorched the topcoat paint off a neighboring sub, revealing its reddish undercoat, hence rather reminiscent of the problem that led to the pink sub. There was insufficient white or red undercoat paint available to do the entire hull. Thus, it was decided to combine their supplies of each to make a pink undercoat. Unfortunately, they didn't obtain the gray overcoat before they had to leave the warehouse area. Thus, they were forced to remain conspicuous during their long trip to Australia. Tokyo Rose did broadcast a comment about the red-coated sub, suggesting that the US Navy had gone nuts.Also, I didn't get the significance of referring to their sub as a pig boat until reading a review. Apparently this was a common nickname , based on the smelly interior of many such ships, especially if the water stills weren't working at full capacity, hence not enough for showers, or if the sewage release outlet wasn't working properly.

elvircorhodzic OPERATION PETTICOAT is a submarine comedy which, in a tasteful way, examines the relationship between "aggressive" sailors and military nurses during the service.A US submarine was, after an air raid, badly damaged and anchored near Manila. The captain of the submarine and his crew begin repairs, hoping to sail for Darwin, Australia before the Japanese overrun the port. One lieutenant was, despite the lack of training or experience, assigned to serve on the submarine. He shows, in addition to the obvious lack of discipline, great skill in procurement of necessary materials for repairs on the submarine. The submarine is finally "ready" for an unusual trip, which, among other things, involves a funny evacuation of five attractive Army nurses...Hormones are raging in limited space. Young nurses have seriously undermined discipline and functionality of the crew. This romantic game, through a slight sexual tension, is quite fun. However, this mess, after a while, becomes monotonous and boring. Everything is too "pink" in this film.Cary Grant as Lieutenant Commander Matthew T. "Matt" Sherman was faced with two problems at the same time. These problems can not be solved through official channels. Mr. Grant is perhaps too indulgent for a captain in this film. A resistance in his character is actually a shameful lie. Tony Curtis as Lieutenant Nicholas "Nick" Holden is a man of ideas. However, each of his ideas has a price. He and Mr. Grant are maybe too similar. They were hooked up with two blondes at the end.This is a charming and funny comedy, in which, regardless of the circumstances, we do not need to look for some meaning or significance.

Robert J. Maxwell Cute and amusing. Cary Grant is the skipper of a submarine stuck in a remote Phillipine base at the beginning of World War II. Damaged in an air attack, the submarine barely gets under way, with Tony Curtis as a dapper last-minute replacement who shows up for duty in natty and immaculate dress whites. Curtis is a born social climber. He is also, however, a born thief and Grant appoints him Supply Officer for the boat.In some funny scenes, accompanied by some clever dialog, Curtis manages to steal enough supplies from various depots to keep the boat going. He also steals such luxuries as toilet paper and a pig for a New Year's luau. At one such wayside stop he manages to pick up five stranded Army nurses, one of them being the hypermastic Joan O'Brian.You can pretty much predict the gags that will follow -- five beautiful women aboard a submarine with a crew of horny young men. The men make a point of squeezing past O'Brian in the narrow passageways at every opportunity. The Chief Motor Mac improvises a piece of machinery out of somebody's girdle. Curtis gives up his dream of marrying his rich girl friend back in the states when he falls for the elegant, blond Dina Merril (who, in real life, probably had a fatter portfolio than Curtis's fictional girl friend). Cary Grant falls for O'Brian and after the war we see both couples, now friends, with Grant an admiral and Curtis the skipper of the submarine, a dedicated navy man.Some of the jokes now seem dated, the current Zeitgeist being what it is. An officer showing the nurses around the boat is embarrassed and stutters fiercely while trying to tell them that the loo is called "the head." On the whole, though, the film is disarming enough to be pretty funny. Grant is fine in this light comedy. He grumbles a good deal at the disorder brought to his command, as if practicing for his later "Father Goose," but he's done this so often that he could have done it all in his sleep. Tony Curtis is often criticized for his "mannerisms" but I don't know why. He's very good indeed at this sort of thing. He knows how to deliver a gag line without dwelling on it, almost running over it, so that if it's a clunker the viewer hardly notices. He's convincing in expository dialog as well and usually brings something fresh to his lines. He could do drama too, and better than Grant.The submarine winds up being painted pink. It is attacked by an American destroyer (DD 568, which should be USS Wren) and Grant desperately sends up the nurses' underwear. The destroyer picks up some of the "debris" and the captain holds Joan O'Brian's brassiere up, staring at the capacious thing, and mutters, "The Japanese have nothing like this." You may or may not think you'll get a kick out of it, but you probably will.

theperfecttomcollins 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.