The Iron Petticoat (aka Not for Money) is a 1956 British Cold War comedy film starring Bob Hope and Katharine Hepburn, and directed by Ralph Thomas. The screenplay by Ben Hecht became the focus of a contentious history behind the production, and led to the film's eventual suppression by Hope. Hecht had been part of the screenwriting team on the similarly themed Comrade X (1940). Hepburn plays a Soviet military pilot who lands in West Germany and, after sampling life in the West in the company of Hope's Major Chuck Lockwood, is converted to capitalism. Subplots involve Lockwood trying to marry a member of the British upper class and communist agents trying to coerce Hepburn's character to return to the Soviet Union. The main story borrows heavily from Ernst Lubitsch's Ninotchka (1939), starring Greta Garbo, and very closely resembles Josef von Sternberg's Jet Pilot with Janet Leigh as the Russian pilot and John Wayne as the US Air Force officer. Jet Pilot, inspired by real-life Cold War pilot defections, completed principal photography in 1950 but was not released until 1957, after The Iron Petticoat. Plot Captain Vinka Kovalenko (Katharine Hepburn) lands a Soviet Air Force jet in West German territory, to the surprise of the United States Armed Forces, who take her prisoner. However, she is neither on a mission nor defecting, just upset about a personal matter back home. Capt. Chuck Lockwood (Bob Hope) is eager to leave for London and visit his wealthy fiancée Connie (Noelle Middleton). A superior officer named Tarbell (Alan Gifford) cancels his furlough, ordering Chuck to sell the Soviet aviatrix on everything good about America and convince her to permanently come over to their side. The colonel even dangles a $100,000 bonus check made out to Vinka to be given if Lockwood succeeds. Vinka is pursued by her former lover, engineer Ivan (Robert Helpmann). She shows no interest in Chuck, and is just as determined to sell him on Russian virtues as he is on influencing her. He describes her as cold and unappealing, but when Connie makes a surprise visit, Vinka strolls into Chuck's room wearing little else but a pajama top and her military medals. Connie becomes increasingly angry, more so when she finds out that Chuck is not as well-off financially as he has pretended to be. Vinka begins to dress in an increasingly enticing manner. One night, at a Russian