''Secret Service'' is a 1931 American
Pre-Code
Pre-Code Hollywood was an era in the Cinema of the United States, American film industry that occurred between the widespread adoption of sound in film in the late 1920s and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship gui ...
drama film
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...
directed by
J. Walter Ruben and written by Bernard Schubert. The film based on a play by
William Gillette, stars
Richard Dix,
William Post Jr.,
Shirley Grey, and
Nance O'Neil.
The film was released on November 14, 1931, by
RKO Pictures
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, is an American film production and distribution company, historically one of the major film studios, "Big Five" film studios of Cinema of the United States, Hollywood's Clas ...
.
Plot
Two
Union officers, Captain Lewis Dumont and his younger brother, Lieutenant Henry Dumont, receive orders from General
Ulysses S. Grant Grant to go behind enemy lines and become undercover agents to feed false information to the
Confederate States Army
The Confederate States Army (CSA), also called the Confederate army or the Southern army, was the Military forces of the Confederate States, military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) duri ...
. Lewis is tasked with becoming part of a Confederate telegraph office in
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Virginia. Incorporated in 1742, Richmond has been an independent city (United States), independent city since 1871. ...
, under the guise of a deceased Confederate officer, Thorne. Meanwhile, Henry is ordered to allow himself to be captured by the enemy, during which he is supposed to pass incorrect information about Union positions.
Thorne comes upon the tail-end of a skirmish between Union and Confederate soldiers, during which he is wounded. After the battle, he carries one of the wounded southerners, Howard Varney, back to his family's plantation. This endears Thorne to the family of the wounded rebel, particularly Varney's father, who is a Confederate general. While recuperating from his own wounds, Thorne develops a romantic relationship with Howard's sister, Edith. However, this creates enmity with one of the locals who was interested in Edith prior to Thorne's arrival, Arlesford.
When Thorne enlists one of the Varney's slaves to take a message to his brother in the prisoner of war camp, Arlesford, already suspicious of Thorne, sets a trap. When the trap is sprung, the slave is executed by hanging. As the two Dumont brothers develop their plan for giving false information, and allowing Union troops to break through the Confederate lines, the younger brother is brought from the prison camp to the Varney plantation. Rather than allow their plan to be uncovered, Henry shoots himself.
The elder Dumont, torn between duty and his love for Edith, is eventually uncovered as a spy. However, it is also discovered that he never sent the false information. As he is led away to prison, Edith vows to wait for him.
Cast
*
Richard Dix as Captain Lewis Dumont
*
William Post Jr. as Lieutenant Henry Dumont
*
Shirley Grey as Miss Edith Varney
*
Nance O'Neil as Mrs. Varney
*Harold Kinney as Lieutenant Howard Varney
*
Gavin Gordon as Mr. Arlesford
*
Florence Lake as Miss Caroline Mitford
*
Frederick Burton as General Randolph
*
Clarence Muse as Jonas Polk
*
Eugene Jackson as Israel Polk
*
E. Alyn Warren as General
Ulysses S. Grant
*
Edward Peil Sr. as Colonel Sharpe (uncredited)
See also
*
List of films and television shows about the American Civil War
References
External links
*
1931 films
1930s spy drama films
American black-and-white films
1930s English-language films
RKO Pictures films
Films directed by J. Walter Ruben
American war drama films
American Civil War spy films
American films based on plays
1930s war drama films
American historical drama films
1930s historical drama films
1931 drama films
1930s American films
English-language historical drama films
English-language war drama films
{{AmericanCivilWar-drama-film-stub