Twentieth Century (1934)

User Rating:

8.1/10   

Director:

Howard Hawks

Writers:

Charles Bruce Millholland (play)
Ben Hecht (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

11 May 1934 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance

Plot:

A flamboyant Broadway impresario who has fallen on hard times tries to get his former lover, now a Hollywood diva, to return and resurrect his failing career.

Plot Keywords:

Broadway | Train | Impresario | Actress | Lunatic

US TV Schedule:

Thur. July 30

7:15 AM

TCM

Cast

John Barrymore	...	Oscar Jaffe
Carole Lombard	...	Lily Garland
Walter Connolly	...	Oliver Webb
Roscoe Karns	...	Owen O'Malley
Ralph Forbes	...	George Smith
Charles Lane	...	Max Jacobs (as Charles Levison)
Etienne Girardot	...	Mathew J. Clark
Dale Fuller	...	Sadie
Edgar Kennedy	...	Oscar McGonigle
Billie Seward	...	Anita

Also Known As:

20th Century (USA) (poster title)

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | German

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Noiseless Recording)

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #4312-R, 11 May 1938 for re-release)

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

After filming had ended, John Barrymore gave Carole Lombard an autographed photo inscribed, "To the finest actress I have worked with, bar none."

Goofs:

Plot holes: When Jaffe takes over direction, he addresses Lily by her new name and she responds, even though she hasn't heard it before. This gap was caused by the deletion of a brief scene in which O'Malley informs her that Jaffe has changed her name.

Quotes:

Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka: All those opera tenors, acrobats, that Italian bicycle rider I told you about... they're all lies. The only man in my life was that cavalier in there. Oscar Jaffe.

Movie Connections:

References Svengali (1931)

Soundtrack:

Happy Days Are Here Again

Don't Close The Iron Door On This Classic

Down but not quite out, a megalomaniacal theatrical producer schemes to get his former star & lover back under contract during a wild ride on the TWENTIETH CENTURY Limited racing from Chicago to New York City.

Directed by Howard Hawks from an inspired script by Ben Hecht & Charles MacArthur, this is one of the seminal screwball comedies which would set the high-water mark for years to come - zany characters, living at a frenetic pace, throwing outrageous lines at each other. While the situations are completely unrealistic it makes no matter. Films like this were calculated to lift Depression audiences out of their troubles for an hour or so; today, we long for them to work that old magic again.

In a large & spirited cast there is one eminence, one name above the title, one peak ascending over the smaller hills. John Barrymore, a lifetime of theatrical history and private dissolution etched on his remarkable face, is a grade A ham as the unspeakable Oscar Jaffe, willing to break any convention, law or dogma to get what he wants. Cajoling, pleading, threatening, cooing like a dove, screeching like a banshee, Barrymore is utterly mad, unspeakably obnoxious & thoroughly delightful. He doesn't just dominate the film, he overwhelms it like a thick wave of brimstone & honey. Watching him infuriate his players by chalking their movements on the floor, disguise himself as an elderly Southern gentleman in order to sneak aboard the train, or arranging his own fake death scene to serve his egotistical ends, is to watch a master of the acting art play a comedic role worthy of him.

Carole Lombard is lovely, but completely overshadowed by Barrymore. Her character, while that of a great star, is pitched at a more normal tilt and exists to react to his enormities. While she's wonderful to watch, it's impossible to forget to whom the film really belongs.

The rest of the cast is first rate. Barrymore's two faithful factotums are played by dyspeptic Walter Connolly and sardonic, boozy Roscoe Karns, both of whom have learned to deal with The Master's dictums in different ways. Hatchet-faced Charles Lane plays a director who becomes Barrymore's theatrical blood rival. Edgar Kennedy burnishes his few scenes as a private eye who's no match for an enraged Lombard. Handsome Englishman Ralph Forbes plays against type as a spoiled society boy who thinks he's in love with Lombard. And for sheer looniness there's chittering little Etienne Girardot, playing a benignly mad gentleman wandering about the train plastering large REPENT stickers on every available surface.

Movie mavens will recognize Herman Bing & Lee Kohlmar as the uncredited & hilarious Passion Players from Oberammergau.