Charles Farrell — Charlie’s Impression of the Right Kind and Wrong Kind of Girl (1931) 🇺🇸
“What type of girl do I admire?” echoed the popular Charles Farrell in response to the question.
by Frances Deaner
“Mostly one with a sense of humor. One who has an agreeable disposition. One who talks intelligently and is interesting. One who has that quality of character we call a pal,” he said, after giving the query some thought.
“I like a girl who can play golf or tennis with a fellow, or go sailing with him, and be ready to read and talk over a current book or a play — one who understands and enters in to the spirit of recreation and also of social activities, but does not become sentimental.
“If a man can find all these qualities rolled up in just one girl, he’s lucky. And to him she will be beautiful, regardless of the fact that she may not rate such a score with the world, at large.”
Charles Farrell’s new picture is based on a romance in a mythical Balkan state pivoting about a princess and a young American engineer, son of the president of the United States Heating Corporation. Maureen O’Sullivan plays the princess.
It was following Charlie’s outline of The Princess and the Plumber that the idea presented itself to ask him the above question.
Charlie enjoys an enormous following in his screen work. Last week, for instance, he received exactly 6041 letters from admiring fans. And that is just one week in the year. He has many such encores in the run of the calendar.
His “best girl,” as nearly all of his friends know, is his mother, Mrs. David Farrell. She was the first to visit the home he built in Hollywood and she stands first with him in all his affairs. She arrived in Hollywood last year just before Christmas, with Mr. Farrell, from their home in Onset, Mass., and she is still enjoying her son’s hospitality. He wanted her to remain with him and take charge of the home.
“The girl in The Princess and the Plumber, as played by Maureen O’Sullivan, is a charming type,” said Charlie. “She has spirit and a love of romantic adventure. When we first meet in the picture, I think she is a peasant girl and she thinks I am a duke.
“When she finds out I am not a duke, she shows quite a bit of temperament, but that makes her all the more interesting, because she has already shown a marked fondness for the duke. We thoroughly enjoyed our work together in the picture, which has a number of clever situations.”
Yachting is Charlie’s favorite pastime. He owns a forty-foot yawl which he named Flying Cloud, after the famous old Flying Cloud of Cape Cod history. He spends practically every week-end on the boat cruising mostly around Catalina Island, and is generally accompanied by Kenneth McKenna, also a New Englander, and quite as fond of ocean-sailing as Farrell.
Conversation returned again to The Princess and the Plumber.
“Oh, yes, we get married at the finale,” said Charlie in reply to the inevitable question — “Did you get the girl?”
“But I’m not going to tell you how it happens that an American boy marries a foreign princess and lives happily ever after — even though her father thinks she is marrying another chap. Right before his very eyes, too. That’s romance, isn’t it?”
Asked the type of girl he would care to marry in real life, Charlie said:
“To be perfectly frank about it, I don’t know. My ideas have not assumed definite form… yet.
“But — the type I would NOT care to marry is the girl who endeavors on any and all occasions to impress one with her superior education and her advanced thought and culture. She is the type of girl with the superiority complex, who makes a fellow feel mighty uncomfortable with her smugness — no matter what his own education, training and culture might be. She is a new type of girl, I believe.
“When love comes to me — and I trust it will some day — I will be better qualified to give my views on the subject. I am not and never have been a boy with a dream-girl complex. I know when I like a girl. It is always the personality that impresses me first. She may not even be good-looking, but if she is sweet — not sickly sweet — and wholesome and clean-thinking and clean living… then I know I like her… but I have not yet fallen in love.”
—
The Princess and the Plumber features Charles Farrell and Maureen O’Sullivan as the two principal characters in an intriguing love story laid in a romantic Balkan Kingdom. As you might guess, Charlie is the plumber, and Maureen is the beautiful princess. Of course we are not allowed to tell you how everything comes out — but such a situation cannot help but be most interesting and amusing, you will agree.
Photo by Fox
Collection: Screen Mirror Magazine, January 1931
—
 |
Check out this magnificent Original Vintage Window Card of The Princess and the Plumber (1930) in our store. |