OPERATION PETTICOAT (1959)

Mildly amusing tale of a WWII submarine captain who, due to some extraordinary circumstances, is forced to allow five Army nurses to catch a ride onboard his sub.  Naturally this causes chaos among the all-male crew and gives the writers reason to unleashes all kinds of G-rated sex jokes, like the ship's mechanic saying "A woman just shouldn't mess around with a man's machinery." or when a female who's climbing down a ladder asks "Am I going down alright?"  Hardy-har-har.

Innocent story, corny humor, Joan O'Brien stretching that shirt for everything it's got, a couple of tattoos on sailors in the background, numerous vintage military ships, airplanes and, of course, the sub.  Also, this is yet another movie where the singing of "Auld Lang Syne" is quickly followed by disaster.  It'd be interesting to see exactly how many movies feature a similar situation.  I'm pretty sure it also happened in THE APARTMENT and THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE.

Anyway, despite the dated humor, I still enjoyed OPERATION PETTICOAT.  It's not really funny at all, but both Cary Grant and Tony Curtis are a pleasure to watch together.  And audiences agreed because this was the number 10 biggest box office draw back in 1959.

If you need me, I'll be in my room watching MISTER ROBERTS.

ONCE UPON A HONEYMOON (1942)

Five years after making one of my favorite movies of all time (THE AWFUL TRUTH), Leo McCarey and Cary Grant team up once again to make this wildly uneven and depressing romantic comedy/spy caper set in pre-World War II Europe.  Radio broadcaster Grant is working on a hot story about a Austrian Baron (and his gold digging American wife Ginger Rogers) who's going around Europe and wherever they go, soon falls to the Nazis.  Sounds hilarious!  Anyway, Grant falls for Ginger Rogers (who is somehow too stupid to realize that her husband is a top ranked Nazi!) and naturally she falls in love with him.  Trouble is she's married to one of Hitler's most loyal henchmen.  All kinds of funny stuff happens like assassination attempts, a successful assassination, city's getting bombed, a man turning his wife over to the Nazis, Jews fleeing, children crying, a guy drowning and Grant and Rogers getting thrown into a prison camp for Jews.  It's a feel good laugh riot!

I'm sure there's fans of this movie, but I found ONCE UPON A HONEYMOON painful to get through.  The pace was slow, the story was all over the place, Ginger Rogers acting was terrible, hell even Grant's wasn't anything to brag about and the patriotism!  Oh my god!  At one point Rogers and another actor actually raised their right hand and recited the Pledge of Allegiance!!!  If that's not enough to turn you away then go for it.  Maybe you'll like it.  As for me, I hope I never see this propaganda misfire ever again.

IN NAME ONLY (1939)

One day while out walking near his country home Cary Grant runs into the beautiful Carole Lombard fishing.  As they talk you can tell there's a spark between them, but Grant has a terrible secret: he's married to a horrible, evil, gold digging, ice queen, devilish, manipulating, superbitch!  Lombard finds out about the superbitch soon enough and Grant demands a divorce, but SC does all kinds of underhanded things to stretch it out in hopes that the stress will doom Grant and Lombard's relationship.

IN NAME ONLY starts out slow, but once the emotional roller coaster gets going it's a wild ride.  Being such an old film I'm sure most modern audiences would find the whole thing dated, but I was happily surprised at how mature and non-sappy the film was for the time.  Good pace, brave performance by Kay Francis at playing somebody so unlikeable, good writing strong performances by the entire cast (I was especially intrigued to see two such talented slapstick performers trying out their dramatic chops).  For a 1930's melodrama IN NAME ONLY is a good one and worth checking out.