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.
Review of The Lieutenant Wore Skirts
