Friday, January 27, 2012

Operator 13 (1934)


MGM
Directed by Richard Boleslawski
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Warner Archive Collection)

Marion Davies is a northern spy sent south during the Civil War. She dons black face and speaks in a ridiculous southern accent to pass herself off as a servant. Remarkably, no one doubts her identity, even the real southern slaves. She meets Gary Cooper, an officer in the Confederacy, and they have a mostly unspoken attraction for each other. Davies returns to the north and years pass. Near the end of the war, she is sent south on another mission and meets Cooper again, this time as a southern lady. The romance tends to dominate over the more interesting war drama, especially in the second half, but the film is undeniably entertaining despite its shortcomings, of which there are many.

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