Charles Farrell — Carefree Charlie (1929) 🇺🇸

December 21, 2023

Five people were in a room in Hollywood, some four years ago. To their way of thinking, it was a crazy musical soiree. Charles Farrell was the only one, I believe, who took it in earnest, and it is like him to do that with everything.

by William H. McKegg

Among those present was Walter Lang, to-day becoming a well-known director. He purposely made a lot of tremolo and glissando passages with his voice, as if he were singing La Traviata. Two others joined in. Another, being an excellent pianist, accompanied the warblers. All were in the spirit of the fun.

Charlie had been quiet, sprawling on an armchair, altering his languid positions every few minutes, as he does even to-day. When Charlie is ever quiet, you may depend upon his having something very important on his mind. The others guessed what he was likely to do — and they were not wrong. Pulling himself out of his sprawling pose, he got out his pet cornet, the instrument he never tired of playing.

“Let’s have a go at this,” he gayly suggested. “Keep on singing just the same.”

During a lull Charlie would rest his beloved cornet on something — the mantelpiece as likely as not — but he invariably held onto it with one hand. As soon as the music was begun again, Charlie got in on the first blast.

On this particular evening his companions made him mad.

“That trumpet of yours, Charlie, or whatever it is, sure makes a strange noise!” “Try and keep in tune, old chap!”

Charlie put up with their chafing for about half an hour in a hesitant, good-natured way. Gradually he believed they were in earnest. It became too much. He got mad.

His musical talent had been impugned! Out of the kindness of his heart he had played for the others’ entertainment, and they gave him the “merry ha-ha!” Almost dancing about the room in rage, Charlie brandished aloft his cherished instrument, seemingly determined to smash it to smithereens. He was frantically looking for a suitable place to commit the deed. Finally he flung his cornet from him — but only onto the bed, where it bounced up and down on feathered softness.

Only on very rare occasions do you get a glimpse of Charlie in a temper. The one way to rouse him is to make fun of something he likes, or does. But, hang it all, they wouldn’t let him sing, and they wouldn’t let him play! That sure makes a chap sore! At first Charlie takes it all in a sportive manner, then off he goes.

He lacks humor when it is directed at himself.

Let me mention the last of Charlie’s cornet. He and his instrument went one night to King Vidor’s home. Whether King got rid of it in his own way, I have never found out. I do know, though, that the cornet was never seen again. Charlie, for a year after, made various resolutions to go to Vidor’s home for his misplaced child, but for one reason or another he never went. Perhaps he knew it would be no use. But he never said so. Scenes for the last picture made by Willard Louis were shot at Venice. It was low tide. A man was supposed to fall over the end of the pier into the shallow water below. Charlie’s part called for this action which, of course, required a stunt man. As a joke, the director and others kidded Charlie about being afraid, though they did not mean to let him go through with it.

“You’re yellow!” some one cried. “And you want to become a star! You’re afraid, that’s what’s the matter! You’re yellow!”

Charlie lost control of his arms and legs and rushed from one of his tormentors to another. He hardly knew, what he was doing. He wanted to say so much he’ could hardly speak at all.

“I’m yellow, am I? Oh, so I’m yellow, am I?” he yelled. “All right! I’ll show you! I’ll let you see’ whether I am or not! I’ll fall down into the water! I’ll do it! I’ll do it! I’ll show you!”

Charlie mounted the rail at the end of the pier, and was quite willing to risk his neck. From such a height he would have splashed through the mud clear to China. Only when the troupe explained their joke, was Charlie drawn away from his perilous perch, though even then somewhat reluctantly. This naive daring of his won admiration, nevertheless.

In case you believe Charlie is a Don Quixote, glance at his clear-headed side.

It was about four years ago that Mrs. Farrell paid her first visit to her son. Charlie’s sister, Ruth, also appeared.

“You know, Charlie,” said Mrs. Farrell one evening, “you should give up trying any more for the movies. You’ve been out here a year, and what have you done? Nothing but extra work. Come back with me, and your father will place you in something.”

Mrs. Farrell, as you can guess, regarded business as more lucrative than a high fling at art.

To Charlie this proposal must have sounded as tempting as if his mother had asked him to smash his cornet. He got up from his sprawling position, walked about the room with one hand at the back of his head, the other in his pocket, a perplexed look on his face. Drawing a deep breath, as if his answer was going to wake the world, he replied:

“No, I’m not going back with you. You see, mother, it’s like this: If I went East now, and later on saw any of my chums playing leads, I’d say, If I had stayed in Hollywood I might have got a break, eventually.’ You see, I’d feel mad at myself for leaving, mad at you for persuading me, and mad at every one else.”

Failing to get her screen-struck son to think better of his decision, Mrs. Farrell, with much maternal advice, returned East, leaving Charlie once again alone.

“Now remember, son, as soon as you get fed up with the movies come home,” were her last words at the station.

“No,” her dutiful but obstinate boy replied. “I’ll get somewhere yet.” But Mrs. Farrell let that go in one ear and out of the other. The train started and Charlie, hands deep in his pockets, slouched his way back to Hollywood and uncertainty.

Charlie has a reticence about him which invariably strikes me as being a self-consciousness left over from his adolescent days, Though I imagine he thinks deeply, he is never free with his opinions. He has always been like that.

Yet for all his adolescent manners, there is something very substantial about Charlie Farrell. He has a straightforward, honest way that wins him respect. Just before he got his break in Sandy, things were very slack. His chum was going East for a holiday. Charlie was homesick. Mrs. Farrell, as if guessing his thoughts, sent him money to buy a round-trip ticket.

Nine movie sons out of ten would have spent all that money, even if they did not use it for its intended purpose. Not Charlie. He sent it back to his mother, although he had practically nothing to live on. He explained that he had a chance — only a chance — for a role in a Madge Bellamy picture. If he left Hollywood he might lose it. He stayed and got it.

Most of our romantic juveniles possess, or better still acquire, a complex or two. Such things are supposed to distinguish them. Charlie is free of all complexes. In this he almost stands alone.

We have heard of his supposed engagement to Janet Gaynor. He was reputed to be in love with her and she with him. Then Greta Nissen was mentioned, because she played with him in Fazil. Lately Virginia Valli is the lady. The two first rumors I know to be false.

His success in Old Ironsides, The Rough Riders, Seventh Heaven, and Street Angel is now history. His acting opposite Janet Gaynor proved the sensation of last year. Fazil is a poor role for him. It needs a John Gilbert, not a carefree Mr. Farrell. The Red Dance, in which Charlie plays the role of a Russian prince, hardly shows him as a convincing Muscovite.

Idealistic characters fall best into the category of his capabilities. He needs simple, unsophisticated roles — ones requiring carefree youth, ambling through life without any complexes. He plays such a role in The River, with Mary Duncan — that girl with that way with her! Right now he is under the guidance of Murnau [F. W. Murnau], in Our Daily Bread. In this we will see a different Charles Farrell.

But the best thing about Charlie — even greater than his rise to the heights — is the fact that he has not lost himself in the clouds. To those who really know him well, he is just the same now as he was when he was an extra and his cornet was his inseparable companion.