Basically just a historic curio now

This Civil War romance, with Marion Davies and Gary Cooper as spies on opposing sides who fall in love, is very, very outdated now. Many people will find it offensive as well. I just thought it was a mildly entertaining, though not very good, oddity.

Marion Davies has one good musical number, singing for some soldiers, at the start. Then she undertakes a spying mission as a black maid...yes, a black maid. This is as offensive as it sounds, both for her blackface and dialect. Even when she washes the blackface off, Ms. Davies gives a pretty insipid performance. This is most decidedly not a highlight of her resume. Gary Cooper is in handsome matinee idol mode and does well enough, but this is not an award winner for him either. Actually, the best part for me was the musical numbers by the Mills Brothers, all nicely done except for some stereotyping in the "Jungle Fever" number. Sidney Toler turns up playing Allen Pinkerton, but he gives a stolid performance and if you close your eyes, you'd swear by his voice and stilted line readings that he was doing an early performance as Charlie Chan, as he sounds pretty much the same as in his later films. Pretty much just for Davies and Cooper fans and those curious to see a casually racist 1930's Hollywood film.