Officer O'Brien

Intermittently hilarious comedy-drama from Tay Garnett about straight-arrow William Boyd dealing with his recently-paroled father, Ernest Torrence. Torrence is so good that whenever anyone else needs to speak, they have to send him offstage. The supporting cast (especially Clyde Cook) is excellent, but Boyd is a droning stiff. Some great camerawork from Arthur Miller -- no, not that Arthur Miller -- who seems to not have heard that you can't move a camera about in early sound films.

I generally cut very early sound films a lot of slack. After all, the filmmakers were new to the medium and the films lacked the polish of movies made just a year or two later. But this one is one that NO ONE could cut any slack because it really, really stinks!!!

The title character is played by William Boyd (later known as 'Hopalong Cassidy')--a guy who COULD act. But here, he sounds like an incompetent actor--and that's putting it mildly. He way overannunciates EVERYTHING and his delivery is impossible to believe. To make things worse, pretty much EVERYONE in the movie overannunciated--like they all just received coaching from a voice coach who was insane. And, the director was equally insane for that matter. And, the writer was insane as NO ONE on this planet talks like these folks!

The film is about Lt. O'Brien of the police force and his fight with a mob leader. At first, it seems like the mob boss will be convicted of doing bad stuff--but there in the middle of court, the chief witness against him is shot!! And, no one saw anything!!! And, this point was never explained in the least!! There is a concurrent plot about O'Brien's father who has been paroled....and all this really made no sense either.

The only thing I enjoyed in the least was seeing Arthur Houseman as Mr. Zurich. Houseman almost always plays funny and affable drunks and seeing him play a murderous gang member was kind of fun....kind of but not enough to give this film a score higher than 2! Yecch.

I have a nice print of OFFICER O'BRIEN (PATHE; 1930) in my 16mm collection; it's a rather rare copy, obtained from Charles Tarbox's Film Classic Exchange ages ago! He had a number of obscure Pathe features and told me that, at one time, he held the TV rights to these albeit limited to the Los Angeles area, where was also his shop. This surprised me, the pictures in question not then being in general television release! My copy has very good sound, so this "johnniedoo" probably saw an inferior print, possibly even a dupe. OFFICER O'BRIEN is not as good as one might expect, given its cast (William Boyd, Ernest Torrence) and director (Tay Garnett); but I, personally, appreciate such early-talkies, such as this, even existing!

Sincerely, Ray Cabana, Jr.

I just watched this PQ and sound was not so good but not unexpected for the age. I didn't take it for much of a comedy though did laugh out loud a few times.I like the director's other offerings over the many years of his career. Not this one. I like Hoppy Boyd so prejudiced in his favor. I do not go for the inability of some of the early attempts made by silent stars to recite lines.Most females considered acting with dialogue was a tremolo-quiver to indicate every emotion but a laugh, which also quivers. I did not see any real beauty of execution in this one. Lines seemed coached for every other word sometimes. Lots of the trouble was just newness of milieu-but there were far better films from that year and better execution ,pauses to send in lines or whatever. It is a film I watched start to finish and do not advise against it, just not the best of the year but an interesting historical piece showing all the obstacles that were overcome with in a couple of years. ground breakers , pioneers etc should be watches just is lousy.I would have liked it more as a silent. maybe it was released soundless in some theaters? Nearly forgot-Movie about an upwardly mobile cop who gets his jewel thief pop out of prison on parole without dad's knowledge- a serious cop hater somehow never knew his son became a cop while in the joint. twists and turns gives the movie some distinction but , still...