Officer O'Brien (DVD)

William Boyd -- in the days before he donned the cowboy hat of Hopalong Cassidy -- stars in this pre-Code crime classic! Bill O'Brien, Chicago's top cop, has finally got the goods on gangster Mike Patello. Johnny Dale, the brother of O'Brien's fiancee, Ruth, saw the racketeer commit cold-blooded murder. But the young man is killed by Patello's men before he can take the witness stand. Ruth blames O'Brien for her brother's death, breaking off their engagement. Tossing aside his badge, a devastated O'Brien vows to bring Patello to justice...but not by the book...

Officer O'Brien is a notable non-Western role during the sound era for William Boyd (1895-1972). Years before he became Hopalong Cassidy, the actor was a popular romantic leading man in features as diverse as Cecil B. DeMille's The Volga Boatman (1926) and D.W. Griffith's Lady of the Pavements (1929). His dramatic career was derailed when newspapers mistakenly ran a picture of him to report the arrest of another actor with the same name, William "Stage" Boyd in 1931. Let go from his studio contract, he struggled to find work until he was cast as Clarence E. Mulford's cowboy character in Hop-Along Cassidy (1935). Those interim years were not completely dismal for Boyd, however; he married his Officer O'Brien leading lady, Dorothy Sebastian, in December 1930. Director Tay Garnett would make several successful pictures in the following years, including China Seas (1935), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949). Also appearing in Officer O'Brien are silent comedian Clyde Cook and Russell Gleason, who played one of the doomed German soldiers that same year in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). Note: Due to the age and rarity of this film, some picture and sound anomalies exist.

• drama