You'd best hold on tight and don't let go because you're in for quite the ride on board the Twentieth Century. It's screwball comedy taken to the absolute max, and it barely lets up for a minute. It's one ridiculously memorable (or memorably ridiculous) scene after another, with just a couple highlights being Carole Lombard getting stabbed in the behind with a pincushion, and John Barrymore faking a fatal bullet wound in order to get her to sign another contract. John Barrymore is unbelievably and hopelessly hammy, and I mean that in a very good way. The film itself is so completely over the top, you will either love it wholeheartedly, or hate it with a passion. I do hope it's the former.
I'm not quite sure what the title had to do with anything, but this is still an enjoyable opportunity for John Barrymore and Carole Lombard to have some theatrical games of cat and mouse with a bit of help from the long suffering Walter Connolly's "Oliver" and the permanently sozzled "Owen" (Roscoe Karns). Barrymore is the acclaimed impresario "Jaffe" who discovers the improbably named "Mlldred Plotka", re-christens her "Lily Garland" and - despite herself - decides to make her a star. Turns out he's not a bad judge of character, but as her star ascends the relationship between them sours. She takes up an offer to move to Hollywood and that leaves him in the lurch. A few flops later and he's desperate to get her back. Might a chance meeting on a train manage to reconcile them or are things just too far gone for that now? The writing really does allow Barrymore and Lombard to play to their strengths here providing loads of thespian dramatics and ham as the plot motors along for an hour and an half. There's a diverting little sub-plot featuring a poster boy with a difference (Etienne Girardot) before a clever little denouement that just has to raise a smile. It's a classy comedy this with more than a little of the stage play to it's dynamic as Howard Hawks sits back and let's his stars entertain us.
