Operator 13 (1934)

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Director:

Richard Boleslawski

Writers:

Robert W. Chambers (stories)
Harvey F. Thew (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

8 June 1934 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | History | Romance | War

Plot:

Gail Loveless, a spy known as Operator 13 working for the Union and Federal cause during the Civil War...

Plot Keywords:

Spy | Civil War | Firing Squad | Racial Impersonation | Deception

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar.

Cast

Marion Davies	...	Gail Loveless
Gary Cooper	...	Captain Jack Gailliard C.S.A.
Jean Parker	...	Eleanor Shackleford
Katharine Alexander	...	Pauline Cushman
Ted Healy	...	'Doctor' Hitchcock
Russell Hardie	...	Lieutenant Gus Littledale
Henry Wadsworth	...	Capt. John Pelham
Douglass Dumbrille	...	General Stuart (as Douglas Dumbrille)
Willard Robertson	...	Captain Cornelius Channing C.S.A.
Fuzzy Knight	...	Pvt. Sweeney (Stuart's groom)
Sidney Toler	...	Major Allen aka Allen Pinkerton
Robert McWade	...	Colonel Sharpe
Marjorie Gateson	...	Mrs. Shackleford
Wade Boteler	...	Officer Gaston C.S.A.
Walter Long	...	Operator 55

Also Known As:

Spy 13

Runtime:

85 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

USA:Passed

Company:

Cosmopolitan Productions

Trivia:

Curly Howard of the Three Stooges was originally to have appeared in this film.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Captured on Film: The True Story of Marion Davies (2001) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Roll, Jordan, Roll

Strange Is Just the Start

Operator 13 (1934)

** (out of 4)

Extremely bizarre and rather choppy Civil War drama about actress Gail Loveless (Marion Davies) who goes to work as a spy for the Union. Once undercover, as a black maid, she begins to have feelings for a Confederate soldier (Gary Cooper). Once again Davies lover William Randolph Hearst put the money up for this production and half way through the making he had director Raoul Walsh fired even though he had made GOING Hollywood with Davies a year earlier. A new script was written and the rest is history but in the end this turned out to be one of the strangest dramas from this era. I might go even further and call the film a complete and utter embarrassment and a horrid excuse for entertainment but the thing is just so strange that you can't help but be entertained by it. The first thirty-minutes has Davies in some very bad blackface make up as she's undercover as a maid. Davies wasn't a newbie to blackface but the make up job here is so light skinned that you can't help but laugh at the thought that this make up job would be able to fool anyone in discussion with her and that includes Cooper's character. This is a drama yet Davies plays this maid role as some sort of comedy with the bad accent, which again doesn't sit well with what the film was going for. Not to mention that whoever was doing the make up forgot to paint her palms so they're constantly white. The second half of the film really doesn't get any better even though we do get a few battle scenes but none of them are all that interesting. Even worse are various musical sequences which come out of no where and will have you wondering if the Civil War was an actual war or just one big concert. Add in the bad direction and rather bland performances and you've got a movie that really needs to be rediscovered and held up as a cult classic. Even Cooper can't save this mess but he does add some charm to an otherwise crazy movie.