Thursday, 9 July 2015

Operation Petticoat


Also Known As:
Unknown
Version:
Language:
English…
Length:
124 minutes
needed to precede following dd
Uncut
Review Format:
DVD
Year:
1959
Country:
United States…
Predominant Genre:
Comedy
Director:
Blake Edwards…
Outstanding Performances:
Entire Cast…
Premiss:
A submarine commander finds himself stuck with a decrepit boat, a con-man executive officer & group of army nurses.
Themes:
Destiny
Family
Humanity
Loneliness
Love
Mankind
Materialism
Narcissism
Nature
Personal
Personal change
Political
Preventive
Rationality
Redemption
Self-Esteem
Sex
Sexual Repression
Stereotyping
White culture
Similar to:
Unknown

Getting on top of the problem

Summary: Military discipline suffers when sex-starved sailors share a submarine with five stranded nurses.

Somewhat unpatriotic and downright un-American sex-comedy set in World War II with a Sergeant Bilko edge to the goings-on.

A subtle and classy movie about a US Navy submarine that finds it difficult to see action (to lose its military virginity) because the human urge to procreate is stronger than the desire for revenge over Pearl Harbor. No matter how much the boat’s commander wants to get back at the Japanese, the libido is always more powerful than the sword; the sex-war being more assertive than the World War.

The contrivances are a little unbelievable, but the point is well made that men and women confined in the limited space of a submarine are bound to get on top of one another. Although set in 1941, this movie is really about the release of libido that follows a total war - producing baby booms - than it is about the actual commission of war.

The performances are all topflight and the only real problem is that the characterization is not as profound as needed for a story about basic humanity temporarily-suppressed by the needs of war and good military discipline - a startling metaphor for the permanently sexually-repressive nature of White culture. The non-explicit sexual humor is perfectly-expressed without any need to go beyond the visual and verbal bounds of a movie that could not possibly offend anyone, save the worst Christian fundamentalist.

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Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.