Operation Petticoat

Cary Grant's a World War 2 sub commander, except his sub was damaged in a bombing raid before ever going on a mission. With the base in danger from the Japanese advance, he gets permission to at least try and get it to another safe base, if he can even get it running. And he'll have to make do with whatever crew he has left or can scrounge up. Which is how he gets a lieutenant (Tony Curtis) with no actual experience in submarines or anything related to serving at sea. Curtis is a hell of a scrounger though, or perhaps black marketeer would be a better word.

As they travel in a clanking, listing, occasionally leaking submarine, things grow more complicated. Not so much due to the Japanese, though. Curtis goes ashore on one island to see what he can "acquire" and returns with a half-dozen nurses, who obviously cannot be left behind in the face of the advancing enemy. Except submarines aren't equipped to be co-ed in the 1940s, so this causes many problems. Mostly owing to having a sub full of guys, or the chief engineer being freaked out by women hanging their underwear to dry in the engine room (that's bad luck, Captain!). There's also one nurse who is klutzy as hell. Hits collision alarms by accident, causes some kind of foul-up right when they were about to torpedo a loaded tanker, causing them to hit a truck instead. All of which drives Grant up the wall. In his typical wryly sarcastic Cary Grant way, of course. No pulling his hair for this fella.

Eh, with the quality of American torpedoes in the first half of the war, they probably wouldn't have sunk the tanker anyway.

The last little bit of the movie, they end up taking on a bunch of pregnant ladies Curtis promised to transport to safety in return for something. I forget what. They also needed to paint the sub for some reason, and with only red and white paint, and not enough of either individually, they mix them and the sub becomes pink. Cue much grousing about humiliation among members of the crew.

I guess because it's supposed to be a comedy, the movie skirts the edges of the war. The sub is retreating already, and in no fit condition to fight anyway, so there isn't much time wasted on avoiding depth charges or air attacks. It's mostly Grant growing increasingly frustrated with all the unexpected passengers, and with Curtis treating the war like a minor inconvenience on his attempts to climb the social ladder. Definitely not a film I'd call a career highlight for either actor.