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Released June 15, 1934
Featuring Ted Healy and Curly Howard (Solo)
MGM
84.5 min. (Feature Film)

Following the Battle of Bull Run, two stage actresses are recruited as Union spies. Pauline Cushman poses as a New Orleans socialite and Gail Loveless (Marion Davies) dyes her hair and skin to pass as a slave. With the help of Captain Hitchcock (Ted Healy) and Lt. Littledale posing as traveling medicine show doctors, the women infiltrate General Jeb Stuart's headquarters in Virginia to search for information to stop an invasion of Washington DC. Loveless meets Capt. Jack Gailliard (Gary Cooper), one of Stuart's senior officers, and is smitten.

The mission a success, Loveless is recruited again to pose as a Confederate sympathizer exiled from New York. Arriving in Richmond, she must identify and help Operator 55 (Walter Long) assassinate the organizer of the Sons of Liberty, an underground network of Confederate spies and sympathizers infiltrating the North. The head of that organization is none other than Jack Gailliard, and Gail must make a choice between her duty and the man she loves.

Curly Howard has a brief cameo (8 sec.) in OPERATOR 13 as a Confederate soldier. Costume and makeup production stills of Curly exist, and one graces the cover of The Three Stooges Journal # 118 (Summer 2006). It can also be found in the book One Fine Stooge.

Healy stooge Paul "Mousie" Garner had a small role as a Union soldier in the film's opening moments, but unfortunately cannot be singled out from the crowd scene.

OPERATOR 13 was referred to, two years later in the Stooges' Civil War comedy UNCIVIL WARRIORS (1935)... "What happened to Operator 13?" "He swam across the river and died of 'Potom-aine' poisoning."

Walter Long is usually known for his bad-guy turns in films like THREE LITTLE PIGSKINS (1934), and Laurel and Hardy's PARDON US (1932), GOING BYE-BYE (1934) and THE LIVE GHOST (1934). But this time, he appears as one of the "good guys," Union spy 'Operator 55.'

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Avg. Rating: [6.00/10]
 
OPERATOR 13 on IMDb

Marion Davies
Gail Loveless / Operator 13

Gary Cooper
Capt. Jack Gailliard

Sidney Toler
Maj. Allen Pinkerton

Katharine Alexander
Pauline Cushman / Operator 27

Ted Healy
Capt. Hitchcock

Russell Hardie
Lt. Gus Littledale

Robert McWade
Col. Sharpe

Fuzzy Knight
Pvt. Sweeney

Douglass Dumbrille
Gen. Jeb Stuart

Willard Robertson
Capt. Cornelius Channing

Wade Boteler
Provost Marshal Gaston

Jean Parker
Eleanor Shackleford

Marjorie Gateson
Mrs. Shackleford

Henry Wadsworth
Capt. John Pelham

Walter Long
Operator 55

The Four Mills Brothers
Medicine show balladeers

Larry Adler
Harmonica player

Don Brodie
Wounded Union soldier

Sterling Holloway
Wounded Union soldier

Samuel S. Hinds
Union officer Price

Francis McDonald
Confederate officer Denton

Reginald Barlow
Col. Storm

Freddie Sanborn
Confederate officer

James A. Marcus
Confederate Colonel

Ernie Alexander
1st Confederate sentry

Richard Powell
2nd Confederate sentry

Jerry Howard
Confederate soldier

Poppy Wilde
Party guest

Mary Halsey
Party guest

Nell Craig
Party guest

Ruth Moody
Party guest

Mary MacLaren
Party guest

Madame Sul-Te-Wan
Slave at medicine show

Etta Moten
Slave at medicine show

Fred 'Snowflake' Toones
Slave at medicine show

Clarence Muse
Slave at medicine show

Theresa Harris
Slave at medicine show

Lee Phelps
Confederate soldier

Wilfred Lucas
Confederate trial judge

Wallie Howe
Clergyman

Clarence H. Wilson
Josiah Claybourne

Margaret Bert
Washington townswoman

Dorothy Vernon
Washington townswoman

James C. Morton
Secret Service man

Lia Lance
Operator 18

Ernie Adams
Operator

William Henry
Young Confederate Lt.

Edgar Kennedy
Confederate officer arguing with Pelham

John Larkin
Fishing slave

Arthur Grant
Chaplain

Richard Tucker
Firing squad officer

Frank Leighton
Union firing squad

E. Alyn Warren
Gen. Ulysses S. Grant

John Elliott
Gen. Robert E. Lee

Belle Daube
Mrs. Dandridge

Si Jenks
White trash

Zita Baca
Dancer

Douglas Fowley
Union officer

Charles Lloyd
Union Private

Donald Douglas
Confederate officer

Frank Marlowe
Confederate officer

Frank Burt
Confederate Lt.

Sam Ash
Lieutenant

Sherry Hall
Army officer

DeWitt Jennings
Artilleryman

Buddy Roosevelt
Stunt double for Ms. Davies

Unidentified OPERATOR 13 5
Hospitalized Union soldiers

Unidentified OPERATOR 13 6
Confederate Sergeants

Unidentified OPERATOR 13 7
Confederate buglers

Unidentified OPERATOR 13 25
Soldiers at Bull Run


Robert W. Chambers
Original Stories

Harvey Thew
Screenplay

Zelda Sears
Screenplay

Eve Greene
Screenplay

George J. Folsey
Photography

Frank Sullivan
Film Editor

Cedric Gibbons
Art Director

Edwin B. Willis
Associate Art Director

Arnold Gillespie
Associate Art Director

Douglas Shearer
Recording Director

Walter Donaldson
Original Music

Gus Kahn
Lyrics

William Axt
Synchronization

Maurice De Packh
Orchestrator

Jack Virgil
Orchestrator

Paul Marquardt
Orchestrator

Charles Maxwell
Orchestrator

W. Donn Hayes
Music Editor

Adrian
Gowns

Robert A. Golden
Assistant Director


















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