Anna Q. Nilsson has escaped from the Damn Yankees to bring information to the Confederate Army to help them take the fort. When their assaults fail, she goes back, sends a note to the Rebels that she will be shot and they take the fort -- apparently women are in very short supply.
This Kalem short film is available on the National Film Preservation Foundation site. Kalem had made half a dozen films about Gene Gauntier as the cross-dressing Girl Spy, but she was in Ireland with Sidney Olcott's unit. Since Kalem had established itself as the producer of Modern Women's movies, they cast Miss Nilsson in the role.
With the fiftieth anniversary of the Civil War on, stories about the glorious South were popular. So long as Abraham Lincoln was not slandered, Yankees didn't mind, and Southern audiences were pleased.
Miss Nilson's starring career would continue to a bad riding accident in 1928, and she often dressed in men's clothes in them. After the accident, her career almost vanished. If she is remembered at all, it is for her brief appearance in Billy Wilder's SUNSET BOULEVARD; given the rise of Greta Garbo, there wasn't much of a market for middle-aged Swedish movie stars in America.
This Kalem short film is available on the National Film Preservation Foundation site. Kalem had made half a dozen films about Gene Gauntier as the cross-dressing Girl Spy, but she was in Ireland with Sidney Olcott's unit. Since Kalem had established itself as the producer of Modern Women's movies, they cast Miss Nilsson in the role.
With the fiftieth anniversary of the Civil War on, stories about the glorious South were popular. So long as Abraham Lincoln was not slandered, Yankees didn't mind, and Southern audiences were pleased.
Miss Nilson's starring career would continue to a bad riding accident in 1928, and she often dressed in men's clothes in them. After the accident, her career almost vanished. If she is remembered at all, it is for her brief appearance in Billy Wilder's SUNSET BOULEVARD; given the rise of Greta Garbo, there wasn't much of a market for middle-aged Swedish movie stars in America.
