Iron Petticoat, The (1956)

Captain Vinka Kovalenko (Katharine Hepburn) – a serious-minded and officious female pilot from the Soviet Union – defects to the West because of the way women are treated by the patriarchy in her home country (she has been passed over for a promotion which went to a male colleague).

USAF officer Captain Chuck Lockwood (Bob Hope) is ordered by the State Department to introduce her to some of the gaiety of London nightlife as a propaganda exercise to showcase the capitalist ideal.

Kovalenko is determined to convince Chuck of the superiority of Communism and hatches a plan to take him back to Moscow to parade as an example of a liberated western male embracing Communism.

Meanwhile, military officials at the Soviet Trade Mission based in London are of the belief that Kovalenko defected for love (for Chuck) and enlist the aid of one of her past unsuccessful suitors – mild-mannered engineer Ivan Kropotkin (Robert Helpmann) – to woo her back to the Soviet Union.

Also in the mix is Chuck’s wealthy, aristocratic British fiancée, Lady Constance Warburton-Watts (Noelle Middleton).

There are some great supporting roles by British actors including James Robertson Justice, Sid James, David Kossoff and Richard Wattis, but the film is a dire slice of ridiculous nonsense.

Captain Chuck Lockwood
Bob Hope
Captain Vinka Kovalenko
Katharine Hepburn
Lady Constance Warburton-Watts
Noelle Middleton
Colonel Vladimir Denisovich Sklarnoff
James Robertson Justice
Ivan Kropotkin
Robert Helpmann
Dr Anton Antonovich Dubratz
David Kossoff
Colonel Newton Tarbell
Alan Gifford
Tony Mallard
Nicholas Phipps
Major Lewis
Paul Carpenter
Paul
Sidney James
Senator Howley
Alexander Gauge
Tityana
Sandra Dorne
Sutsiyawa
Tutte Lemkow
Major Osip Feodor Ganovich
Olaf Pooley
Grisha
Martin Boddey
Alex
Richard Leech

Director
Ralph Thomas