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[edit] Introduction

With a script by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Ben Hecht (Nothing Sacred (1937), Wuthering Heights (1939), His Girl Friday (1940), Comrade X (1940), Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946)), and starring Academy Award-winning actress Katharine Hepburn and beloved comedian Bob Hope, The Iron Petticoat should have been a box-office smash in 1957. Instead, it remains an obscure film in the pantheon of three Hollywood legends.

While neither Billy Wilder nor Charles Brackett were involved with this film, their influence on Hecht's script is keenly felt: loyal Soviet female comes West and is seduced by the bright lights and glamour of the capitalist system. By the time of The Iron Petticoat's release, this story was already familiar to movie audiences:

Ninotchka (1939), starring Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas
Comrade X, starring Clark Gable and Hedy Lamarr)
Jet Pilot (filmed in 1949/1950, but not released until 1957), starring John Wayne and Janet Leigh
Silk Stockings (1957), starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse

It also didn't help matters that Hope wasn't pleased with the screenplay as written by Hecht, and had his show's writers punch-up the script, which apparently left many of Ms. Hepburn's scenes on the cutting-room floor.

Hecht was so angered by Hope's interference that he took out an ad in film trade journals writing an open letter disclaiming the picture and offering Hepburn and her fans an apology. Never one to be outdone, Hope replied to Hecht's claims with an open letter of his own, apologising to Hecht that he had a hit on his hands and hoping that they would keep up this in-public correspondence. [1]

The film was one of the few Bob Hope didn't make for his home studio, Paramount Pictures, and one of the very few for the King of Comedy that flopped at the box office. It was filmed in England for London Films and was distributed in the US by MGM.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Main Cast

Bob Hope . . . Major Charles "Chuck" Lockwood
Katharine Hepburn . . . Captain Vinka Kovelenko

[edit] Supporting Cast

Noelle Middleton . . . Lady Connie Warburton-Watts
James Robertson Justice . . . Colonel Sklarnoff
Robert Helpmann . . . Ivan Kropotkin
Alan Gifford . . . Colonel Newt Tarbell
Alexander Gauge . . . Senator Howley
Richard Wattis . . . Lingerie Clerk

[edit] The Movie

Captain Vinka Kovelenko (Katharine Hepburn) defects from the Soviet Union. She is not leaving her homeland for political reasons, but because she was passed over for promotion for a less-qualified male officer.

Major Chuck Lockwood (Bob Hope) is the fighter pilot who forces Kovelenko's MIG down in England, and who winds up being ordered to get her to see the superiority of the Western capitalist system over Communism.

As love blossoms between these two ideological strangers, the actions of the KGB and the CIA may end the romance before it begins.

[edit] Trivia

On October 1, 1956, Bob Hope made a guest appearance as himself on I Love Lucy in the episode entitled "Lucy and Bob Hope" (ep. 6.1). During the scene with Lucy Ricardo in the New York Yankees locker room, he plugs his upcoming film, The Iron Petticoat.
It is rumoured that because of the poor reception for this film, Bob Hope had the film removed from distribution in the United States, and refused to release it to television or VHS/DVD distribution there as well.

[edit] Timeline

June 30, 1956: World premiere in West Berlin, West Germany
January 7, 1957: Opened in theatres in the United States
March 19, 2001: First release on VHS in the United Kingdom
October 20, 2003: Released on DVD in the United Kingdom as part of the multi-DVD collection, 3 Classic Katharine Hepburn Films: The African Queen | On Golden Pond | The Iron Petticoat

As of this writing, The Iron Petticoat has yet to be released on either VHS or DVD in the United States, and has never been screened on television there as well.

[edit] Fandom & Kerfluffles

Because of both the age of this film (50+ years as of this writing) and the [probable] non-existence of a fandom devoted to it (as opposed to fandoms devoted specifically to actors Katharine Hepburn and Bob Hope), the likelihood of any fannish kerfluffles is minimal.

It should be noted, however, that because of the obscurity of this film -- it has, to the best of anyone's knowledge, never been released on either television or on VHS/DVD in the United States -- and because of its legendary status as a rarely screened film in both the Hepburn and Hope film catalogue, it remains a curiosity among fans of the work of both actors.