Why "Soitenly," You're the Best DAD
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Featuring Ted Healy and Curly Howard (Solo)
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.'
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
Sam McDaniel
Rufus
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
Hattie Hill
Slave
John Kirkley
Slave
Lee Phelps
Confederate soldier
Wilfred Lucas
Confederate trial judge
Wallie Howe
Clergyman
Hattie McDaniel
Annie
Clarence H. Wilson
Josiah Claybourne
Margaret Bert
Washington townswoman
Dorothy Vernon
Washington townswoman
James C. Morton
Secret Service man
Franklin Parker
John Hay
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
Martin Turner
Hickman
Claudia Coleman
Nurse
Si Jenks
White trash
Buddy Roosevelt
Civilian
Zita Baca
Dancer
Wheeler Oakman
Scout
Frank McGlynn Jr.
Scout
Douglas Fowley
Union officer
Paul 'Mousie' Garner
Union soldier
Charles Lloyd
Union Private
Donald Douglas
Confederate officer
Frank Marlowe
Confederate officer
Frank Burt
Confederate Lt.
Sam Ash
Lieutenant
Sherry Hall
Army officer
James Sheridan
Officer
DeWitt Jennings
Artilleryman
Robert R. Stephenson
Guard
Buddy Roosevelt
Stunt double for Ms. Davies
Unidentified OPERATOR 13 1
Abraham Lincoln
Unidentified OPERATOR 13 2
DC civilians
Unidentified OPERATOR 13 3
Cushman Players
Unidentified OPERATOR 13 4
Hospital guard
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
Richard Boleslavsky
Director
Lucien Hubbard
Producer
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
Howard Dietz
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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