O’Brien is really too “pretty.” To most men he is almost--but not quite--as sickeningly sweet as Francis X. Bushman used to be. Perhaps this condition is aggravated by such titles--and such pictures--as “The Perfect Lover.” Mayhap, also, it is but the innate jealousy of the male beast.
Film Truth’s mail from all sections of the country is frank and outspoken--and a pretty safe index to public thought on films and film folk. Reading this barometer we find that Eugene O’Brien is regarded as not quite all “a man’s man.” He’s “too nice,” according to the most recent letter--this from an eighteen-year-old miss.
Inside the film fold and stage circles the same opinion prevails rather generally. O’Brien deserves to be kicked twice around the block and once up the alley for the “Lunnon” accent he acquired at the Lambs Club. Or, perhaps we should call it outspokenly a “Lambs Club accent.” The difference may be explained by the statement that if there is any violet-tinted drawl that grates on a regular he-American’s ears more than a London accent it is a Lamb’s bleat.
This affectation--plus mannerisms in the same atmosphere--has been against O’Brien. We will confess that for many years we also held to the general view that Eugene was too lavender-hued for mixed company.
But later years, and closer opportunity to hold the microscope over the subject of this sketch, have brought a change of mind. We are ready to state--now that we have been asked the question, “What sort of a fellow is he really like?”--that Eugene O’Brien is a regular, honest-to-goodness human equation, and a “he” of the species.
O’Brien, to those who know him, a likeable chap, a liberal host, and a true blue pal. He has, deep down within him, a sense of personal perspective. We even believe he realizes what some others think of him, and, give him credit, a lurid, cussing contempt is his only reaction.
If only the blankety fool would exchange that blarsted thin-stringed London twinge for the healthy twang of his Denver birthplace.
The nearest we have ever known him to come to it was on a recent occasion when Selznick attempted to put into force certain petty restrictions on the use of automobiles in journeying to locations distant from the Los Angeles studio.