The Iron Petticoat

1957

The Iron Petticoat

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TOMATOMETER

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25%

Audience Score

User Ratings: 943
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Movie Info

The basic plot for the frothy romantic comedy Ninotchka is revamped and updated to reflect the Cold War in this comedy that stars Bob Hope as an Army major assigned to "westernize" Katharine Hepburn who plays a dour Russian pilot who has defected to the American embassy in Berlin after having an argument with her superiors. The joke is that even as Hope tries to convert her to his philosophies, she is trying to convert him to hers and somewhere in the midst of the ensuing conflict a romance begins to bloom.

Cast

Katharine Hepburn
as Vinka Kovelenko
Bob Hope
as Maj. Chuck Lockwood
James Robertson Justice
as Col. Sklarnoff
David Kossoff
as Dr. Dubratz
Robert Helpmann
as Ivan Kropotkin
Alan Gifford
as Col. Newton Tarbell
Paul Carpenter
as Maj. Lewis
Noelle Middleton
as Connie
Nicholas Phipps
as Tony Mallard
Sidney James
as Paul
Alexander Gauge
as Sen. Holly
Doris Goddard
as Maria
Tutte Lemkow
as Sutsiyawa
Sandra Dorne
as Tityana
Richard Wattis
as Lingerie Clerk
Maria Antippas
as Sklarnoff's Secretary
Martin Boddey
as Grisha
Alexis Chesnakov
Eugene Deckers
Richard Leech
Olaf Pooley
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Critic Reviews for The Iron Petticoat

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Audience Reviews for The Iron Petticoat

  • Sep 12, 2014
    The illustrious Ben Hecht was the initial screenwriter here with a work intended for Cary Grant and Kate Hepburn, but Cary dropped out and so the producers got Mr. Bob Hope instead (yeah I know, what's the connection?). And Hope (as he always did) brought his own writers to, er, "massage the script". Kate wrote in her memoirs that "... so I became his stooge." There was denunciations all round afterwards, after it was panned and bombed, and in the end Hope himself saw to it that this film was not shown in the United States for nearly 20 years. Kate's Russian accent is as bad as could be imagined but at least you can see the old girl working to lift the thing by sheer willpower if need be. Not all of Hope's humor flies either, for all the massaging. This is not quality product. But then it's not all bad either.
    Kevin M. W Super Reviewer
  • Apr 04, 2007
    Very minor reworking of Ninotchka with Hope and Kate, whose accent is all over the place, sharing little to no chemistry. The script is weak but if Cary Grant, her best costar, had appeared in this as originally planned it might not have been a classic but because of their rapport a much better film than it is.
    jay n Super Reviewer
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