The Lieutenant Wore Skirts

The one bright scene with Rita Moreno replicating Marilyn Monroe's role in THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH with Tom Ewell is not enough to salvage this leaden farce about a man (Ewell) trying to get his wife (Sheree North) released from the military.

To be fair, this is not the fault of Ewell, North, or Moreno, but lies with writer/director Frank Tashlin, whose fetish with big breasts and cleavage wears thin fast. Most of the women in his films sport hiked-up gigantic breasts they could rest their chins on. They tend to resemble the back ends of Chryslers and Cadillacs.

Plot has Ewell recalled to military service (really?) so wifey (North) races out to re-enlist. He flunks his medical exam but she's already signed up and assigned to Hawaii. Ewell goes to Hawaii to try to spring her from the military by, heavens to MASH's Klinger, getting a "section 8" by proving she's nuts.

Supporting characters are mostly annoying. Rick Jason plays a leering hunk who Ewell sees as a rival. Then there's the mannish female captain (Alice Reinheart) and the leering best friend (Les Tremayne). Edward Platt plays a dumb psychiatrist. Rita Moreno plays Tremayne's girlfriend. Sylvia Lewis provides a bright spot as a stripper named Henrietta Hipslider.

The only reason to watch this film is for the brief homage to THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH. This scene with Ewell and Moreno is funny and even the music is borrowed from the Monroe classic.

Yes, it's a mid-20th century 20th Century Fox eyeful, in Cinemascope with eye-popping colors, sumptuous locations, and the equally sumptuous Sheree North (whose warmth and naturalness, in spite of huge odds, suggest 20th really mishandled her). But the whole comic premise -- Ewell will stoop to any means to get his wife out of the military -- just isn't that funny, and it also makes our hero a selfish, unlikable lout. Add to that Frank Tashlin's usual breast-fetishizing (including the same busty-woman-with-two-milk-bottles gag he uses in "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?"), and gender roles so prescribed that the sight of a man in an apron is supposed to be automatically hilarious, and it's clear that this is a vehicle running on fumes. Ewell's regular-guy act hasn't aged well, and a nearly no-name supporting cast edges timidly around the Cinemascope frame, afraid to rock the leaky boat.

Tom Ewell settled and married to Sheree North whom he met while in the Air Force is now a hack Hollywood writer and one of those married to the dwelling 50s types. She was in the service herself and married Ewell there.

Now Ewell's been recalled to active service kind of like the way Jimmy Stewart was in Strategic Air Command. But then Ewell gets out when he flunks the physical. All that soft Hollywood living.

But North being the dutiful wife she is goes out and reenlists just to be with her hubby. At that point Ewell finds himself in the same position Cary Grant was in with Ann Sheridan in I Was A Male War Bride.

With women doing just about all the jobs in today's military a lot of the humor of The Lieutenant Wore Skirts is kind of lost. But as Ewell who gives up Hollywood for Hawaii settles down to domestic simplicity at base housing where North is stationed. Even him participating in a bridge game with the other spouses is cause for disruption of the normal social order.

Ewell and North make a fine married team. She's certainly a good girl to come home to if she was not the breadwinner. Note some good performances by Rick Jason as a fighter jet ace on the make for North or whomever is available and Les Tremayne as Ewell's cheerfully hedonistic agent.

Ewell and North fly high here in nothing but friendly skies.

Long overshadowed by director Frank Tashlin's The Girl Can't Help It (also 1956), The Lieutenant Wore Skirts is deserving of reappraisal. Starring hatchet faced Tom Ewell as Greg Whitcomb, a U.S. Air Force reservist with a bad knee and a wife (Sheree North) in the service, it's a thoroughly sexist but hilarious film. When North is ordered to serve in Hawaii, Ewell follows after her, determined to get her to quit or be discharged by hook or by crook. Forced to stay home cleaning dishes, cooking dinner, and playing bridge with the girls, he soon cooks up a plot to convince base psychiatrist Edward Platt that his wife is suffering from a nervous breakdown. Shot in brilliant Technicolor and in Cinemascope, this is 50s cinema eye candy par excellence, but the film also benefits from a snappy (and at times, quite daring) Tashlin screenplay. Besides the always wonderful Ewell, the film also features an hilarious performance by Rita Moreno as an air-headed beauty who gives him ideas.