Petticoat Pirates

Petticoat Pirates
Film poster
Directed by	David MacDonald
Written by	T.J. Morrison Lew Schwarz Charlie Drake
Produced by	Gordon L.T. Scott
Starring	Charlie Drake Anne Heywood Cecil Parker John Turner
Cinematography	Gilbert Taylor
Edited by	Ann Chegwidden
Music by	Don Banks
Production company	Associated British Picture Corporation
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
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

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] It was written by T.J. Morrison, Lew Schwarz and Drake. The film had its premiere on 30 November 1961 at the Warner Theatre in London's West End.

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...

It was Anne Heywood's first film after leaving the Rank Organisation.[2]

According to Kinematograph Weekly the film was considered a "money maker" at the British box office in 1962.[3]

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."[4]

Variety wrote: "The screenplay is flabby and dialog mainly flat. It seems that director David MacDonald was trying not to let Drake monopolize the action, and the result is an uneasy mixture of slapstick and straight comedy. Of the remainder of the cast, Miss Heywood looks pretty, but unconvincing as the chief raider. Cecil Parker offers another of his well-timed studies in pomposity while John Turner makes a stalwart, pleasant hero. ... Regrettably it must be recorded that Petiicoats Pirates provides too few laughs on the ocean wave."[5]

Leslie Halliwell called the film an: "uncertain comedy fantasy."[6]

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."[7]

• Petticoat Pirates at IMDb