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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
Brand: Sony
EAN: 9781404977730
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
ISBN: 1404977732
Label: Sony Pictures
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Sony Pictures
Region Code: 99
Release Date: February 22, 2005
Running Time: 91 minutes
Sales Rank: 13340
Studio: Sony Pictures
Theatrical Release Date: May 11, 1934
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Description:
Carole Lombard and John Barrymore star in this all-time classic screwball comedy based on the Charles MacArthur-Ben Hecht Broadway hit and directed by Howard Hawks. It's the story of a maniacal Broadway director (Barrymore) who transforms shopgirl Carole Lombard from a talented amateur to a smashing Great White Way success adored by public and press.
Amazon.com:
Screwball comedy was practically invented by this classic Howard Hawks picture, a breathless farce with not an ounce of sentimentality. John Barrymore, in magnificent form, plays egomaniacal Broadway producer Oscar Jaffe, who molds his latest protégé, Mildred Plotka, into elegant thee-a-tuh star Lily Garland (Carole Lombard). The last hour of the picture has Oscar and Lily, now on the outs, battling each other on the Chicago-to-New York train. These two marvelous creatures are quintessential Hawks characters, figures of pure style who can't exist without the adrenaline and spark so amply supplied by the Hecht-MacArthur script. Hawks's giddyup pacing anticipates Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday, and his deployment of character actors (notably Walter Connolly and Roscoe Karns, as Jaffe's long-suffering, oft-fired flunkies) is sublime. Barrymore and Lombard take it at full speed, grand and horrid and silly and probably meant for each other. --Robert Horton
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Classic Screwball Comedy
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TWENTIETH CENTURY (1934) is perhaps the greatest of all screwball comedies and is the film that established Carole Lombard as the "queen" of that genre. Howard Hawks directed the Charles MacArthur/Ben Hecht screenplay.
John Barrymore, in what may be his "grandest ham" performance, is an egomaniacal Broadway director who discovers shopgirl Lombard and builds her into a major star, as well as making her his mistress. Their relationship is a volatile one, thus three years later she leaves him to go to Hollywood and, shortly thereafter, he goes broke producing plays without her.
Sneaking out of Chicago on the Twentieth Century to New York, Barrymore discovers that Lombard is a fellow passenger. Now, if he can only sign her to a contact before they reach their destination, he can get the financing for his next production. The only problem is that she hates him...or does she?
Walter Connolly and Roscoe Karns co-star.
© Michael B. Druxman, author of ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD
Rating: - The Art of Great Over Acting!
This is the great screwball comedy based on the stage play of the same name. It is said that the screwball comedy was basically invented by this film. It was filmed in 1934, about the same time as It Happened One Night. John Barrymore is the playwright, producer and director of plays who discovers a lingerie model played by Carole Lombard and puts her in his newest play. She can't act and everyone tells him to get rid of her but he bullies her into a great actress. She becomes a star and is seduced by him. He dominates her every step and they make 3 plays together in 3 years. She finally seizes an opportunity to run away with another man and escape. Finally, the meet on the train, the Twentieth Century and a show down begins. Will she come back or won't she? The overacting, over dramatizing brings the two together yet throws them apart each time. What shall they do? This is a great comedy and anyone who loves acting, drama and comedy will love this picture. Love is a Farce.
Rating: - "Out! I close the iron door."
Howard Hawks filmed this elegantly madcap look at actor's egos. John Barrymore, with some help from Carole Lombard, stayed upright long enough to give one more great performance on film. He's a producer with an ego bigger than the Great White Way and she's a lingere model he molds into the toast of Broadway.
Once she becomes a huge star, however, she wants to live it up rather than sit around and discuss his genius. His hilariously insane jealousy drives her to Hollywood where she becomes the biggest thing in pictures. Meanwhile, he has flop after flop but retains his volatile temperment and ego. Broke and running from creditors, he and his put upon backer Webb (Walter Connolly) take the 20th Century Limited and who should be on the train but Lily Garland (Lombard).
But she now has an ego nearly as big as his and is nearly as big a ham! The script from Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur shines as they thrust and parry towards the inevitable. While the film does suffer just a bit from lack of a likable and normal lead character usually found in most screwball comedies, it still survives as a terrific example of the genre.
Barrymore has one last hurrah and Lombard isn't just in fabulous form, but her fabulous form is shown to breathtaking advantage as Hawks has her constantly adorned in satin evening dress or lingere. A bit detached but certainly a must see for Lombard fans.
Rating:  - "The sorrows of life are the joys of art."
"She's marvelous, just as I thought. Fire, passion, everything," John Barrymore's maniacal producer character dramatically declares, speaking of Lily Garland (the woman played by Carole Lombard). "The gold is all there, but we must mine it." And mine it he does. That's the plot of this film---transforming "a shop girl from a talented amateur to a smashing Great White Way success adored by the public and press"---which is based on a play; and it very much feels like a play, with John Barrymore's bellowing theatrical voice seemingly reaching for imaginary balconies. One might be inclined to call Barrymore's portrayal herein over-acting; in which case, if you're so inlined toward this view, you'll rather dislike this film. But if you're a John Barrymore fan; or if you're one who relishes screwball antics (perhaps with a helping of the theatrics of a Norma Desmond playing beyond the camera) then you ought delight in this film.
"Twentieth Century" (the name of a train---which Barrymore's character utilizes to return to New York after having been run out of town in Chicago) is all Lombard and the aforementioned dramatic lead, with delicious sidekick foils played by Walter Connolly and Roscoe Karns; one of which Barrymore's Jaffe character fires three times over the proceedings herein (the first time in this manner: "I've had enough of your treachery. Get out! From now on, I close the iron door on you"). If you liked the back and forth romantic antagonism of "Bringing Up Baby," ... Read More
Rating: - Seminal Screwball Classic Ages a Bit But Still Has Barrymore and Lombard in Peak Form
Master filmmaker Howard Hawks' sure hand at outrageous, character-driven farce is what maneuvers this seminal 1934 screwball comedy into its acknowledged status as a film classic. More than anything else here, he appears responsible for the transformation of Carole Lombard's screen persona from uncertain glamour girl to first-class comedy pro, as she vividly portrays Mildred Plotka, a struggling actress nurtured by Oscar Jaffe, an egomaniacal Broadway impresario. Through his Svengali-like techniques, he has changed the former Mildred into Lily Garland and a major star, but his obsessive behavior leads to her departure to Hollywood for film success and his tailspin into a series of stage flops. By chance, they are both on the Twentieth Century en route from Chicago to New York, and the frenetic plot settles into Oscar's excessive attempts to re-sign Lily to another contract. Screenwriters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, already famous for their fast-talking "The Front Page", apply the same kinetic energy to this broadly theatrical farce.
Even though not all the comedy bits work (for instance, the rich asylum escapee's placing "Repent" stickers everywhere), the feverish pitch never lets up, and the cast is very game for the shenanigans. Precariously dangling himself at the edge of caricature, John Barrymore is in peak form in a ham-fisted turn as Jaffe. Whether drawing the chalk lines for Lily to follow or repeatedly caught in fake-suicide attempts, Barrymore seems to relish every moment ... Read More
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