Half Shot at Sunrise

1930
Passed
1h 18m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Leni Stengel, Bert Wheeler, and Robert Woolsey in Half Shot at Sunrise (1930)

The stage stars Wheeler and Woolsey play two soldiers who go absent without leave in Paris, during World War I.The stage stars Wheeler and Woolsey play two soldiers who go absent without leave in Paris, during World War I.The stage stars Wheeler and Woolsey play two soldiers who go absent without leave in Paris, during World War I.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.0/10

408

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Photos6

Top cast21

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Bert Wheeler

Tommy Turner

Robert Woolsey

Gilbert Simpson

Dorothy Lee

Annette Marshall

George MacFarlane

Col. Marshall

Edna May Oliver

Mrs. Marshall

Leni Stengel

Olga

Hugh Trevor

Lt. Jim Reed

Roberta Robinson

Eileen

Jack Rutherford

MP Sergeant
(as John Rutherford)

Original John Tiller Girls

Performers
(as The Tiller Sunshine Girls)

William Bechtel

Restaurant Patron
(uncredited)

E.H. Calvert

Gen. Hale
(uncredited)

Stanley Campbell

Undetermined Secondary Role
(uncredited)

André Cheron

French Waiter
(uncredited)

Edgar De Lange

Military Policeman
(uncredited)

Alexander Ikonnikov

Undetermined Secondary Role
(uncredited)

Owen Martin

Undetermined Secondary Role
(uncredited)

Alan Roscoe

Capt. Jones
(uncredited)

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
This film was a hit at the box office, earning "RKO" a profit of $400,000 ($5.98M in 2019) according to studio records.

Goofs
After a number with Tommy and Gilbert, Annette jumps off the roof of the car, expecting to be caught by the pair, but isn't. She lands on her posterior beside the car. In the next shot, when one of the MPs run up, she's in the same position but much further from the car.

Quotes
Annette Marshall: Are you married?
Tommy Turner: No, I just naturally look worried.

Crazy credits
Opening credits are shown over a battlefield scene, with barbed wire.

Connections
Featured in Hollywood Singing and Dancing: A Musical History - The 1920s: The Dawn of the Hollywood Musical (2008)

Soundtracks
WHISTLING THE BLUES AWAY
(1930) (uncredited)
Music by Harry Tierney
Lyrics by Anne Caldwell
Performed by Bert Wheeler & Dorothy Lee
Later danced at Pierre's café by Original John Tiller Girls

User reviews15

Review

Featured review

much fun in Paris

RKO gave the vaudeville comedy team of Wheeler and Woolsey a second starring feature with this fairly funny piece set in Paris during the Great War. The boys are AWOL from their lowly ranks in the army and running amok amongst the girls in the wicked city. Meanwhile the colonel (former singer George MacFarlane) is juggling a romance with the sparky Olga (scene-stealing Leni Stengel) and the suspicion of his wife (Edna May Oliver's film debut), while his youngest daughter (the team's resident cutie, Dorothy Lee, fixing on curly-haired Wheeler as usual) is on the prowl for someone to be nice' to her.

The movie has a watchable mix of pure comedy (the roller skating waiter, the scented letter, the café scene), songs (the usual duet for Wheeler and Lee; plus a fun bit for Woolsey and Stengal where he ends up dancing in a fountain in his underwear), and romance with the obligatory happy endings after all the mayhem. What does jar though is the attempt to signpost the war by sending the boys to the Front this section just doesn't fit somehow.