Petticoat Pirates

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Petticoat Pirates
Petpiratpos.jpg
Film poster
Directed by David MacDonald
Written by
Produced byGordon L.T. Scott
Starring
Cinematography Gilbert Taylor
Edited byAnn Chegwidden
Music by Don Banks
Production
company
Distributed by Warner-Pathé Distributors
Release dates
  • 30 November 1961 (1961-11-30)(London premiere)
  • 19 December 1961 (1961-12-19)(general release)
Running time
87 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Petticoat Pirates is a 1961 British comedy film directed by David MacDonald and starring Charlie Drake, Anne Heywood, Cecil Parker, John Turner and Thorley Walters. [1] The film had its premiere on 30 November 1961 at the Warner Theatre in London's West End.

Contents

Plot

Wren Officer Anne Stevens and the 150 girls under her command are piqued. On the grounds that Wrens can do anything that men can do, at least as well or better, they demand the right to serve at sea in warships. When their request is turned down by the authorities they board a frigate, imprison the skeleton crew, and set off to sea, where they unintentionally become embroiled in a training exercise between British and US fleets...

Cast

Reception

Box office

According to Kinematograph Weekly the film was considered a "money maker" at the British box office in 1962. [2]

Critical

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Two sequences, one involving Charlie Drake's activities in the boiler room, the other a nightmare in which he plays all the parts from prisoner to judge in a navy court-martial, have the berserk lunacy of some of Drake's television shows: the humour is crude but vigorous. The rest of the film is in the worst traditions of British farce – flat-footed, ineffectual and coy." [3]

Leslie Halliwell called the film an: "uncertain comedy fantasy." [4]

The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 1/5 stars, writing: "In his third tilt at movie stardom, TV comic Charlie Drake again finds himself up a well-known creek without a script. This time, however, he's only got himself to blame, as he co-wrote this woeful comedy, in which he plays a timid stoker ordered to disguise himself as a Wren in order to recover a battleship hijacked by a mutinous all-woman crew." [5]

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References

  1. ↑ "Petticoat Pirates". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 26 April 2024.
  2. ↑ Billings, Josh (13 December 1962). "Three British Films Head the General Releases". Kinematograph Weekly. p. 7. Retrieved 7 March 2023.
  3. ↑ "Petticoat Pirates". The Monthly Film Bulletin . 29 (336): 13. 1 January 1962 – via ProQuest.
  4. ↑ Halliwell, Leslie (1989). Halliwell's Film Guide (7th ed.). London: Paladin. p. 792. ISBN   0586088946.
  5. ↑ Radio Times Guide to Films (18th ed.). London: Immediate Media Company. 2017. p. 716. ISBN   9780992936440.
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