:
John Barrymore,
John Barrymore,
Carole Lombard,
more...
:
Howard Hawks,
Howard Hawks
see all cast/crew...
: Not Rated
: Columbia TriStar
: Classics, Comedies, Classic Comedy, Romantic Comedy, Classic Comedy, Screwball
: 91 min.
: English
: English, Japanese
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Flamboyant, egomaniacal theatrical impresario Oscar Jaffe (John Barrymore) transforms chorus girl Mildred Plotka (Carole Lombard) into leading lady Lily Garland, the toast of Broadway. Once she's ascended to stardom, Mildred/Lily cannot abide Jaffe's obsessive control of her life and career. When he hires a private detective (Edgar Kennedy) to keep tabs on her, it's the last straw. Lily whisks herself off to Hollywood, where she quickly becomes a top movie star. Months pass: without his "creation" to star in his productions, Jaffe goes bankrupt. With his faithful stooges O'Malley (Roscoe Karns) and Webb (Walter Connolly) in tow, Jaffe boards the Twentieth Century Limited, one step ahead of his creditors. By an incredible coincidence, Lily is also on the Twentieth Century, accompanied by her stuffy fiance George Smith (Ralph Forbes). With near-maniacal glee, Jaffe undertakes the herculean task of signing Lily to star in his upcoming spectacular staging of "The Passion Play". Now the laughs, which have been erupting at safe intervals for the past 45 minutes, really begin to cascade, with Oscar, Lily, and a wide variety of eccentrics chasing each other around the Twentieth Century as it speeds its way from Chicago to New York. Based on the Broadway play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, Twentieth Century is "screwball comedy" at its screwiest. Director Howard Hawks once claimed that he was the first to treat his romantic leads like comedians: whether he was or not, it is true than Barrymore and Lombard deliver two of the funniest performances of the 1930s. Nearly 50 years after the release of Twentieth Century, the property was revived as a Broadway musical, On the 20th Century, starring Kevin Kline and Madeline Kahn. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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| This Classic Clunks
by talltale
March 15, 2005 - 7:11 AM PST
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2 out of 3 members found this review helpful
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Not all "classics" hold up as well as we might like, and I'm afraid that the famous John Barrymore/Carole Lombard vehicle TWENTIETH CENTURY is one of these. As directed by Howard Hawks and acted by most of the cast as though it were still being performed on stage, almost everyone seems to be non-stop shouting to make sure that the last row in the balcony hears every word.
Barrymore and Lombard, in particular, give performances that can most graciously be described as "mugging." They do have one long, sustained scene together that is truly funny and even believable. Otherwise, this is one of those movies in which you sit there waiting for that "greatness" you've long heard about to shine through. Keep waiting.
Even the set is too big: It makes a train compartment seems as huge as any pre-war Fifth Avenue apartment. The little man who keeps plastering stickers that read "The End Is Coming" is a hoot, however. Clearly, he realized that, on film, less is usually more. Among all that is so obvious and heavy-handed, he and his stickers are the subtlest and funniest things in the movie. |
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GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 6.88)
33 Votes
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