Line #5 Film/OperationPetticoat


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/operation_petticoat_film_poster.jpg]]
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3	A 1959 comedy directed by Creator/BlakeEdwards and starring Creator/CaryGrant and Creator/TonyCurtis, concerning the manic maiden voyage of the submarine ''Sea Tiger'' in the early days of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.
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5	The movie begins with Rear Admiral Matt Sherman (Grant) making a sentimental visit to his first command, which is due to be scrapped. He goes down to the empty Captain's cabin, opens the old log book and begins to read. Cue flashback to December 10th, 1941. ''Sea Tiger'', part of the Asiatic Fleet stationed at Cavite, is sunk at the dock by Japanese bombers. With the Japanese rapidly advancing across the island and the only alternative being to scuttle what's left of the boat and join the holdouts at Bataan, Lt. Commander Matt Sherman and his crew work frantically to jury-rig sufficient repairs to make the run from the Philippines to Darwin, Australia where the Asiatic Fleet is regrouping with Allied forces. LTJG Nick Holden (Curtis) is a reassigned Admiral's Aide with no sea experience (well, he was on a destroyer for a couple of days before they got it worked out) who proves unexpectedly useful as the new "[[TheScrounger Supply Officer]]" getting Sherman the parts he needs by humorously unscrupulous means.
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7	Repairs are finally complete and they are ready to get underway, but the No. 1 diesel engine keeps backfiring and sending out black smoke. As the Engineering Division try to fix it, a local witch doctor comes up and starts doing some kind of ritual dance to ward off evil spirits. An annoyed Sherman tries to get him to leave when suddenly the engine starts and they are finally able to shove off. As the sub heads out to sea, the engine backfires and the witch doctor stops dancing and shakes his head, remarking, "They'll never make it."
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9	The battered ''Sea Tiger'' sails under strict orders to avoid engaging any enemy craft -- including lifeboats. Forced to drop anchor at Marinduque for more repairs Mr. Holden goes ashore and discovers five stranded Army Nurses. A submarine isn't intended to be co-educational but obviously, the women cannot be left where they are. Cue sexual tension between the predatory -- and engaged -- Lt. Holden and Lt. Barbara Duran (Dina Merrill); Captain Sherman and the buxom--and clumsy--Lt. Delores Crandall (Joan O'Brien); and the misogynistic Chief Motor Machinist's Mate Sam Tostin (Arthur O'Connell) and the mechanically-inclined Major Edna Heywood (Virginia Gregg), the nurses' Commanding Officer.
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11	Sherman intends to unload the nurses at Cebu but the Army officer in Command refuses to take responsibility for them as he is expecting to be overrun and engaged in guerilla operations. Nor can he help Sherman obtain the parts he needs as ''everything'' has been taken up into the hills. Lt. Holden comes up with a solution--he establishes a 'casino' up in the hills which accepts machine parts in exchange for chips, leading Sherman to note that Holden is the only man he knows who will be probably be awarded the Navy Cross at his court-martial.
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13	As the submarine was sunk for several weeks, she desperately needs a new coat of paint to stave off rust. Holden is only able to get some of lead primer paint for the undercoat. The crew is forced to mix red and white lead, resulting in a bright ''pink'' submarine. The nurses find this amusing, while the submariners pray to God that nobody sees them on it. Before the crew can finish applying the regulation haze-gray paint, they are forced to make a quick departure under fire. They also have a dozen or so more passengers, the wives and children of the dealers at Mr. Holden's casino and a goat to provide milk for the children. Even better: two of the women are in the last stages of pregnancy.
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15	[[TemptingFate Sherman naturally assumes that things can't possibly get worse]] -- then they do. TokyoRose mocks the bright pink submarine cruising the Celebes Sea. U.S. Naval Intelligence assumes it's deliberate disinformation, leading to orders to fire on the ''Sea Tiger'' when she attempts to make contact with a destroyer group. Sherman is forced to resort to most unconventional means to prove that he is 'friend' not 'foe'.
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17	The flashback ends with a color photo of the pink ''Sea Tiger'' steaming into Darwin Harbor. Admiral Sherman closes the log book and goes on deck to meet ''Commander'' Nick Holden, now captain of the ''Sea Tiger'' who has just said good-bye to his wife, the former Lt. Duran, and their two sons. A few moments later the Admiral's wife, the former Lt. Crandall, arrives with their four lovely daughters. She manages to rear-end his staff car and send it into a bus, which then pulls out, dragging the Admiral's car behind it by the locked fenders. He assures her it won't go far, then turn to watch as ''Sea Tiger'' shoves off for the last time, punctuated by an explosion from the No. 1 engine. Sherman shakes his head, remarking, "I guess we never did get that fixed."
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19	----
20	!!''Operation Petticoat'' provides examples of:
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22	[[foldercontrol]]
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24	[[folder:Tropes A to M]]
25	* TheAllegedCar: Or The Alleged Submarine -- USS ''Sea Tiger'' is brand-new (commissioned in 1940, according to Sherman), but is badly damaged (''sunk'', if you want to be specific) by the air raid on Cavite. For the rest of the movie she is literally held together with duct tape, using scavenged drain pipes, car parts, and [[ItMakesSenseInContext women's underwear]] to jury-rig temporary repairs until such time as they can get her back to a shipyard.
26	* ArmedFarces: Albeit a somewhat unusual take on this trope. Sherman and most of his crew (minus Holden and Ramone) are competent professionals who are thrust into a very unusual situation and keep getting increasingly absurd complications piled on.
27	* ArsonMurderAndLifesaving: Sherman privately observes that Holden "may well be presented the Navy Cross at his own court-martial."
28	* ArtisticLicenseShips:
29	** ''Sea Tiger'' is played by three different ''Balao''-class submarines (USS ''Queenfish''[[note]] the bookend scenes when the boat is being decommissioned[[/note]], USS ''Archerfish''[[note]] all WWII scenes where she's in regulation haze-gray paint; ''Archerfish'' herself is more famous for having sunk the aircraft carrier ''Shinano'' in 1945[[/note]], and USS ''Balao''[[note]] which had the dubious honor of being painted pink for production[[/note]]. All three saw combat in WWII, but were still being designed when the film takes place. They all have the cut-down conning tower of late-war US submarines, which would not be seen until 1943, and have had their deck guns and antiaircraft guns removed, though the latter is replaced by a single .50 cal, [[ShownTheirWork which is correct for the subs that actually were in service at that point]].
30	** The destroyer that depth-charges ''Sea Tiger'' is USS ''Wren'', a ''Fletcher''-class that was still in her WWII configuration at the time of production and hadn't received the postwar FRAM upgrades of many of her sisters. The first ship of her class was only two months into construction in January 1942 and wouldn’t join the fleet for six months.
31	* BavarianFireDrill: Used by Holden during one of his "supply runs". While two others from the ''Sea Tiger'' are finding the parts they need in a military warehouse, Holden is outside. As Holden (who is wearing black clothes and dark face paint) is keeping watch, a Marine from the local garrison approaches him and asks what he's doing there. Immediately, Holden berates him for breaking blackout regulations by not having proper camouflage and goes on to explain [[BlatantLies that new orders from Admiral Nimitz require all personnel to wear black face paint at nighttime or else enemy planes will use the reflection of moonlight on their white faces to aim bombs at the base]]. He even offers his own face paint to the Marine, who returns to his jeep and shares it with his buddy.
32	* BelligerentSexualTension: Most notably between Tostin and Heywood.
33	* BilingualDialogue: Between Sherman, who understands Tagalog but doesn’t speak it so well, and the pig farmer, who is the same way with English.
34	* BlatantLies: When Sherman is trying to convince Captain Henderson that the ''Sea Tiger'' is ready to ship out, none of his crew put up a good show of lying to the captain. Henderson is hardly impressed.
35	-->'''Henderson:''' I'd say take your scavengers and these liars here and get out.
36	* BrickJoke:
37	** As they are trying to get under way, one of the diesel engines keeps backfiring, making sounds like explosions accompanied by thick, black smoke. The problem does not occur again while they are at sea (or at least, the smoke doesn't; the engine can be frequently heard gurgling throughout the movie while running on the surface). At the end, as ''Sea Tiger'' is getting under way, there is a sudden sound like an explosion and black smoke, causing Sherman to remark that they never did get that engine fixed.
38	** A subtle one shows up early in the movie. While having his own damage report recited to him by Captain Henderson, Sherman plays with the captain's fancy lighter. After the ship is repaired and sets out from Cavite, Sherman discovers Holden lounging about in his quarters and exchanges words with him. As Sherman moves to light Holden's cigarette, he visibly pauses as he realizes that the lighter he picked up is the same one he was playing with in Henderson's office. Much later, while giving some of Holden's possessions away to the farmer in compensation for the pig, Sherman throws the stolen lighter into the lot.
39	* BuxomBeautyStandard: Nurse Crandall is notably well-endowed, and it becomes something of a RunningGag when crewmen passing through the sub's narrow compartments "have to" (and probably intentionally) squeeze past her. It gets to the point that Sherman orders that Crandall is to be given right of way. Later, when they're forced to send out the women's undergarments as "wreckage" to convince the destroyer depth-charging them that they're an American sub, Crandall's is of course the one the crew haul aboard first.[[note]]Ironically, actress Joan O'Brien, who played Crandall, is actually rather modestly-endowed in RealLife.[[/note]]
40	* TheCaptain: The bemused and put-upon Matt Sherman.
41	* CaptainsLog: With lots of entries that... well, [[ItMakesSenseInContext make sense in the context]].
42	-->"Sighted tanker; [[EpicFail sank truck]]."
43	* TheCasanova: Lt. Holden.
44	* CuteClumsyGirl: Lt. Crandall.
45	* DealWithTheDevil: Sherman describes it this way when he orders Holden to get the parts he needs to get ''Sea Tiger'' moving before the Japanese overrun the port.
46	* DeathGlare: "Wow! That's what I call 'scavenging'!" Cue Stoval turning to find Sherman's glare burning a hole through his head, causing Stoval to try amending his statement. Holden also encounters this for running afoul of Sherman.
47	* TheDeterminator: Sherman will stop at nothing to get ''Sea Tiger'' back out to sea, including allowing Holden to clean out the office of Captain Henderson, the commander of ''Sea Tiger's '' submarine squadron.
48	-->'''Captain Henderson:''' I think we've been victims of [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar Sherman's]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman%27s_March_to_the_Sea march to the sea."]]
49	* DoubleMeaning:
50	** When Sherman is trying to convince Captain Henderson that his sub is seaworthy so they can leave harbor.
51	--->'''Sherman:''' Molumphry, will this boat go down?\
52	'''Molumphry:''' Like a rock, sir!
53	** Almost every other word out of Sherman's mouth when talking to Army M.P.s later in the film. While admitting that the pig was taken by Holden and Hunkle, Sherman's subsequent reprimand and explanation would take on an entirely different meaning if Sherman had let it slip who "Seaman Hornsby" actually was.
54	* DullSurprise: Lt. Reid is so unable to process the pig stashed in the head she just walks away with a completely blank expression on her face.
55	-->'''Lt. Cmdr. Sherman:''' ''[friendly]'' Yeah, they're drafting anyone these days.
56	%%* TheEeyore: Seaman Broom. 'You can't win, my friend...'
57	* EmbarrassingTattoo: Poor Seaman Hunkle once got blackout drunk, and now he's got a naked woman tattooed on his chest and feels he can ''never'' go home and marry his fiancée. He is quite self-conscious about it and habitually keeps his shirt buttoned all the way up to the collar. His crew mates actually salute his tattoo whenever he reveals it, and Lt. Reid is so shocked by the sight when she accidentally walks in on Hunkle changing his shirt that she reflexively slaps him, much to her own embarrassment.
58	-->'''Holden:''' They oughta hang you up in the Louvre!
59	* EpicFail: The ''Sea Tiger'' sights a Japanese tanker in a harbor and is trying to lay in a torpedo strike against the easiest target imaginable. One of the nurses ([[TheKlutz Lt. Crandall]] accidentally hits the launch button before the torpedo's guidance system can be programmed with its firing solution, and the torpedo not only misses the tanker but somehow manages to cruise straight up the beach to blow up a truck. In 1942 dollars, that Japanese truck cost less than $1,000 new, while Mark 14 torpedoes cost over $20,000 ''each''.
60	* EurekaMoment: Seaman Hunkle's comment about covering up his obscene tattoo by tattooing a bra and panties over the naked lady is what gives Holden the idea to fire the nurse's lingerie out the torpedo tubes as "debris" to prove that they are not a Japanese submarine.
61	%%* ExactWords: See above under DoubleMeaning.
62	* FriendOrFoe: They are mistaken for a Japanese sub by an American destroyer, which attempts to depth charge them. They end up proving that they are not Japanese by launching the nurses' undergarments from the torpedo tubes.
63	* GenreShift: It initially looks like a fairly straightforward, serious war movie, with the air raid on Cavite Naval Station being fairly violent (though no casualties are seen), and the crew's frantic makeshift repairs being a race against the clock before the Japanese arrive. Then Holden shows up in his dress whites and HilarityEnsues.
64	* GoodLuckGesture: After diving again for the first time since repairs at the start of the movie, the XO has his fingers crossed behind his back the whole time. Once they are at dive depth the Captain reaches out and grabs his hand and forcibly uncrosses his fingers.
65	* HeManWomanHater: Chief Machinist's Mate Tostin is a mild example. He subscribes to the old sailors's superstition that sailing with women aboard is bad luck, and when Sherman sarcastically asks if the nurses should be thrown overboard, replies [[FlatYes "It's something to think about!"]] It soon develops into BelligerentSexualTension with Major Haywood when she starts applying her own mechanical skills to help out.
66	-->'''Tostin:''' Listen, lady. Congress might'a made you an officer, but God made ya a woman, and women don't belong in my engine room!
67	* HiddenDepths: Neither Holden nor Ramone are the most scrupulous of individuals, but they promised the Filipino casino dealers safe passage for their wives and children aboard the sub in exchange for their help, and keep their word in spite of Sherman's irritation. Then they both go out of their way to make sure the women and kids are comfortable.
68	* HornySailors: The whole premise of the film is that a WWII submarine crew can be thrown into hormonal chaos just by adding a few female nurses. At one point the entire crew complement save the Captain decide to present for sick call in order to have the nurses treat them.
69	* ImADoctorNotAPlaceholder: Shouted angrily, and helplessly, by Captain Sherman at Lt Holden as the casino dealers' families are brought aboard, with two expectant mothers with them. "I'm running a submarine, not a maternity ward!"
70	* IndyPloy: Holden's specialty. When Captain Sherman asks what he did on the admiral's staff, he describes his job as "Idea Man".
71	* {{Irony}}:
72	** After the ''Sea Tiger'' is forced to flee Cebu, the crew hears Tokyo Rose's broadcast. Sherman comments that, while their being painted pink is no longer secret, the U.S. Navy now knows about it and will probably be out looking for them. That's precisely what a group of Navy officers decide to do in the following scene, but not with the intention of ''aiding'' the ''Sea Tiger'' like Sherman's tone suggests; they instead resolve to sink it. This nearly gets them killed when they try to contact a friendly destroyer.
73	** About midway through the movie, Sherman is forced to lift Lieutenant Holden's restriction to send him back out to scrounge. He gives a speech in which he refuses to explain the burdens of command to Holden because he doubts that Holden will ever take on that kind of responsibility. [[spoiler:In the present day, it is revealed that the ''Sea Tiger'''s final commanding officer is none other than Commander Nick Holden.]]
74	** A bit of RealLife irony: After spotting a Japanese tanker, Sherman decides to order an attack. Unfortunately, [[TheKlutz Lt. Crandall]] enters the con at precisely the wrong moment, and accidentally launches the torpedo before it can be fully programmed. It subsequently misses wide, slides up the beach, and into a nearby ''truck''. The Mark 14 torpedoes used by American submarines at the beginning of the war were ''notoriously'' unreliable. They frequently ran too deep or too shallow, failed to follow their programmed course, (and in the cases of USS ''Tang'' and ''Tullibee'' circled back to strike ''themselves'') and even if they ''did'' hit the fuses didn't always detonate. There's a very good probability that even had ''Sea Tiger'' successfully launched her torpedo, it would have missed ''anyway''!
75	* ItMakesSenseInContext: ''Petticoat'' is pretty much ItMakesSenseInContext: TheMovie. The situations ''Sea Tiger'' and her crew end up in are so insane they defy easy description, from ''Sea Tiger'' managing to [[EpicFail sink a truck]], to the pig hidden in the head.
76	* TheKlutz: Lieutenant Crandall may be a capable nurse but should be kept far away from anything not directly involving injured people at all times. [[spoiler:Doesn't stop Sherman from marrying her after the film's events, though.]]
77	* LadykillerInLove: Lt. Holden becomes this after meeting Lt. Duran, genuinely falling in love with her. Unfortunately, he's engaged to a woman that he seduced just for her financial standing. It is implied that his fiancée is not the first rich woman he has bedded just to get his hands on her financials.
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80	[[folder:Tropes N to Z]]
81	* NeverGiveTheCaptainAStraightAnswer: Sherman gets chased through his boat this way by his crew on a regular basis, but especially once the women start adding to the chaos.
82	* NotSoAboveItAll: When Holden decides to steal a pig. Sherman has been pretty harsh with Holden up to this point, even though he has been letting his creative scrounging slide for a good part of the movie. So when the guys snag a pig from a local farmer on Cebu, you would expect Sherman to give it back, right? Wrong. One look at the pig (which Holden had hidden in the ship's head) changes Sherman from irate commanding officer to top negotiator, "volunteering" a number of Holden's most valuable possessions (much to Holden's dismay) in compensation for the farmer's lost pig while not really admitting that the pig is on the ''Sea Tiger''.
83	** A more heartwarming one later when Sherman—who had previously objected to taking the Filipino women and children on the boat—is as excited as the rest of the crew when the two pregnant women both deliver healthy babies. When he bumps into one of the enlisted men playing blind man's bluff with the children, he smiles and tells him to carry on.
84	* NotWhatItLooksLike:
85	** Captain Sherman is ready to fly off the handle when he hears that Holden is holding a raffle for the women. Turns out it's actually just a raffle to donate spare uniforms to the nurses.
86	** The tables are turned when Lt. Crandall innocently asks Sherman to help her figure out how to operate the shower (earning him a blast of water to the face). Holden catches them both stepping out of the shower and let's fly with the innuendo.
87	** Sherman later walks in on MMC Tostin and MAJ Heywood apparently spooning in the engine room. They're actually just taking measurements so they can improvise some repairs, but Sherman obviously has his doubts.
88	* ObstructiveBureaucrat: While it is understandable that the sudden outbreak of war would screw up supply lines, Hunkle points out that they've only been at war for a week, but the requisition he sent in for toilet paper hasn't been filled for ''six months''. This of course means that Lt. Holden's [[TheScrounger skills]] are in high demand.
89	* OhCrap: The crew of the ''Sea Tiger'' whenever their damaged submarine comes under attack. Perhaps Sherman's biggest expression of this is when the ''Sea Tiger'' comes under attack from a U.S. destroyer that thinks the Japanese are trying to pull a fast one.
90	* PoorCommunicationKills: ''Sea Tiger'' is nearly sunk by their own navy because they think the bright pink sub couldn't possibly be one of their own.
91	* ResurrectTheWreck: The crew of the sunken ''Sea Tiger'' manage to raise her up and get her running enough to sail her to proper repair facilities. It's also a RaceAgainstTheClock as the Japanese are invading the Philippines and will overrun Cavite Naval Station in a matter of days.
92	* RunningGag:
93	** In exterior shots of the ''Sea Tiger'', the engine is almost always heard belching.
94	** Holden calling for Ramone whenever he needs something.
95	** Nurse Crandall unintentionally screwing up something important.
96	** Nurse Crandall squeezing past the male crew, and Sherman in particular, in the sub's cramped corridors.
97	** Major Heywood annoying the grease monkeys with ideas on how to improve/repair the sub's engines or other machinery. Even more so because said ideas usually work. By the end of the movie, it appears that the Major and her initial antagonist MMC Sam Tostin are about to really fall for each other. (This will present a problem since officer-enlisted romances are contrary to Army and Navy Regulations; perhaps Captain Sherman will put Tostin up for a field commission?)
98	** Ensign Stoval making a comment about Holden and subsequently getting chewed out by Sherman. It ends about halfway through the movie with him reveling about Holden bringing the nurses aboard, causing Sherman to just [[DeathGlare stare]] at him before explaining that this is a ''bad'' thing.
99	* TheScrounger: Lt. Holden, with help from Ramone, both of whom run various scams and deals to get the boat everything it needs.
100	* {{Sexophone}}:
101	** A bit of sultry saxophone jazz plays when ''Sea Tiger'' fires the nurse's undergarments from her torpedo tubes to convince the American destroyer depth-charging them that they ''are'' an American boat (ItMakesSenseInContext).
102	** A similar piece plays over part of the background music when Hunkle is forced to reveal [[EmbarrassingTattoo Gertie]] to Lt. Holden.
103	* ShownTheirWork: The level of detail and accuracy depicted in the operation of a WWII fleet submarine is pretty impressive, especially for a comedy.
104	* SkewedPriorities: Sherman's XO begs him to return to Cebu to get the gray paint they left behind, but Sherman decides it's too risky. The XO insists it's worth the risk, arguing "What if someone ''sees'' us?" Not because the pink paint makes them easier to spot, but because it's embarrassing.
105	* StockFootage: The finale makes use of some period stock footage of depth-charging US Navy destroyers. It becomes obvious when the ''Fletcher''-class destroyer turns into a smaller ''Buckley''-class destroyer escort.
106	* SubStory: The movie is about the adventures and misadventures of a submarine in the early stages of [=WW2=]'s pacific theatre. We get all the usual tropes of running silent, setting torpedoes, listening to the hull creak while diving, but these are all given a comic twist as the situation becomes more and more absurd.
107	* SuddenlyShouting: Sherman resorts to this a couple of times. The first time is with Holden while he's lounging around in his cabin, going from casual snarking to fire-breathing commander so fast that Holden has to take a moment to realize he's not playing around. Later, when Dooley, the pharmacist's mate, is playing sick to get attention from the nurses, Sherman acts sympathetic towards him before snapping at him to get back to work, startling Dooley into clocking his head on the pipes hanging from the ceiling.
108	* TokyoRose: A propagandist broadcasting on the radio declares that while the Japanese can't figure out why the Americans would paint a submarine pink, they will not hesitate to sink it on sight.
109	* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory:
110	** It was red rather than pink[[note]]the topcoat of USS ''Seadragon'' got melted off because another nearby sub was hit and caught fire; both were docked, and TokyoRose referenced the "red pirate sub" in a few broadcasts[[/note]], it was a bus, not a truck[[note]]the torpedo hit a dock and knocked the bus into the water[[/note]] and it didn't happen all to the same submarine in a single voyage, but surprising number of gags from the film (including the angry letter to the supply office about the toilet paper) had some basis in real history. There really ''was'' a goat however[[note]][[http://www.ussarcherfish.com/afishpic/goat.htm is was some crew on the Archerfish in 1961 having a laugh]][[/note]].
111	** USS ''Spearfish'' evacuated a dozen Army nurses from Corregidor before the island's garrison had to surrender and took them safely to Australia (though presumably with fewer shenanigans).
112	** USS ''Harder''[='s=] crew really did add some pink to the regulation gray paint, albeit as a tint rather than a solid color. Their captain thought it would be more effective camouflage at dawn and dusk.
113	* WitchDoctor: Lt. Holden hires one of these to see the ''Sea Tiger'' off, on the theory they need all the help they can get. Though even he comments afterward "They'll never make it."
114	* WorldOfSnark: Most of the male characters' conversation consists of nothing but purest snark, with everybody keeping completely straight faces at all times no matter how ridiculous the situation might be. Sherman and Holden, in particular, communicate almost exclusively through SnarkToSnarkCombat.
115	* WrenchWench: Major Edna Heywood's father was chief engineer at a powerplant and as a result she knows her way around machinery. She decides to apply her background to help get the battered diesel engines into slightly better shape, much to the [[BelligerentSexualTension annoyance]] of HeManWomanHater Chief Tostin. By the end, the two have grown to like (possibly love) each other because Tostin respects her skill as a mechanic.
116	[[/folder]]

Context Film / OperationPetticoat