TeenzTen An action-packed slog

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

HottWwjdIam There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

JLRVancouver "Twentieth Century" pre-code 'screwball' comedy sees ingénue 'Lily Garland' (nee 'Mildred Plotke', played by Carole Lombard) play off against melodramatic director Oscar Jaffe (John Barrymore). Much of the film takes place on the train Twentieth Century Limited (hence the title), as Jaffe tries to con Garland into being the leading lady in his play about Mary Magdalene. The dialogue is fast and generally clever and Barrymore is great as the aging auteur who saw his parade of hit plays dry up when he lost Garland to Hollywood. Lombard is beautiful and her 'Lily Garland' character allows her to run the theatrical gamut from frightened neophyte to diva. The supporting cast is fine and the shenanigans on the train generally comic. All in all, a fun film but (IMO) not one of the era's top-tier comedies.

itsbarrie My husband and I sat through this last night on TCM. We should have been warned by the lead-in, where Robert Osborne issued a list all the positive words in his vocabulary, and Drew Barrymore mewled for five minutes over how much she missed, or loved, or whatever her grandfather, John Barrymore. Neither one said anything very specific about the movie. Just that it was a great great treasure, yada, yada, yada.Rather than a great anything, it's one of those grossly-overrated 'comedies' written by two guys the cultural gatekeepers worship: Charles McArthur and Ben Hecht. Their idea of comedy was to keep people running around, yelling as loud as their lungs will permit. Maybe people found that hilarious in 1934. The plot has John Barrymore as an impossible theatre producer (gee, that's something new) and Carole Lombard as a clueless would-be actress, who flourishes under his tutelage, even to the point of dumping him and becoming a star in Hollywood.Then she hates him, and he needs money, they both accidentally show up on the same train, and amazingly, no one else on the train complains about the endless screaming of Lombard, Barrymore, and the pool of supporting players.The only redeeming thing about this movie is that it shows John Barrymore really was a good actor, and not one of those talent-free critics' darlings so many of his contemporaries were.What he could have done with a far FAR better script is a tragic missed opportunity.

utgard14 Broadway actress Lily Garland (Carole Lombard) leaves eccentric director Oscar Jaffe (John Barrymore), who made her a star. She successfully makes the move to movie acting while his career falters. After a disastrous show in Chicago, Oscar boards the Twentieth Century, a train bound for New York. When he discovers Lily is also on board, he decides to get her back, no matter what it takes.Exceptional screwball comedy from the great Howard Hawks. Lombard's wonderful in the movie that made her a star. Barrymore gives a tour-de-force performance that has to be seen to be believed. Good support from Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns, and Etienne Girardot, among others. Rapid-fire pace, terrific script, and excellent direction. A true classic. One of the top five screwball comedies ever made.

MisterWhiplash John Barrymore appears on screen under an ostensibly ego-centric persona. It's Oscar Jaffe's Oscar Jaffe by Oscar Jaffe in the Oscar Jaffe theater, so it's suffice to say he thinks highly of his craft... until he meets his match with Lily Garland (once Mildred Plotka), a tender actress who just wants to act and shows passion in one moment of desperation that floors him. But Barrymore takes this character, and the subsequent ups and downs (mostly eccentric and crazy downs) he has with Carole Lombard and makes it something special. He claws his fingers and widens his eyes and curves and does maniacal things with his eyebrows, sometimes carrying a cane or a black cloak or at "the end of his rope" with a gun. He's like Count Dracula, Norma Desmond and a villain out of a comic-book all rolled into one devilishly clever and diabolical and wonderfully nutty package.This also means that Howard Hawks's film, a very good if not great comedy on the theater biz and BIG personalities that feed off one another whether they love it or despite it, gets a boost from Barrymore's performance. Make that a BIG boost, so much so that even Carole Lombard, who isn't any kind of slow-poke as far as whipping from one over-the-top emotion or another, can't keep up with how incredible a performance it is. It fills up the screen in every frame and almost threatens to come off the screen and take a few audience members as hostages. Oscar Jaffe is called everything from a phony and fake to a weasel and horror, more or less, and it's all deserved. But one thing he isn't is disingenuous, which makes him always compelling on screen. Some of his actions on the train of the movie's title goes almost TOO far, which is part of the point and some of Hawks's brilliance here.Trying to edge it back and it wouldn't work, and go any further (which sometimes, like the argument scene with the kicking from Lombard) and it goes into feverish melodrama. As it stands Hawks controls his stars just enough, and gets some inspired bits from supporting players like the guy compulsively posting stickers everywhere on the train and writing bad checks, and at worst it's maybe a bit stagy. At best it's inspired and genre-defining lunacy where all you can do at the end is roll your eyes at the characters' shenanigans and know they deserve each other. Which works for us, since we wouldn't want it any other way.