People are voting emotionally.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

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.

. . . without Chico, Harpo, or Groucho. John Barrymore may be convincing in other movie roles, but he's hammier than a pork chop here. As the "Napoleon" of Broadway, Barrymore chews not only the scenery, but the script and props as well. Following his lead, the rest of the cast barely enliven their characters about which few viewers will give even one hoot. The slapstick falls flat, and the repetitive dialog does not get any better the fourth time around. If anyone were actually paying attention, they'd see the plot twists coming from as far away as Toledo is from Elkhart, IN. (This quibble may be a moot hypothetical point, as TWENTIETH CENTURY is more sleep-evoking than a fireplace-log-burning DVD.) Though I found it pretty hard to doze off the last time I boarded a train in Toledo, for slumber inducement, TWENTIETH CENTURY takes the cake among railroading films. If this movie actually advanced the career of anyone involved, one hopes they did not incur a fatal Karma debt because of that undeserved windfall.

Twentieth Century (1934)*** (out of 4)Screwball comedy has John Barrymore playing a play producer who makes a star out of Lily Garland (Carole Lombard) but she leaves him after three years of fights. Soon after she's a major star in Hollywood while he's broke and luck would have it that the two end up on the same train and he'll stop at nothing to sign her for his next play. TWENTIETH CENTURY is a film I really enjoyed, although I didn't love it as much as many people do. Perhaps this is just do to my thinking that Howard Hawks wasn't always the perfect person for comedy. Yes, I know many consider him a master of the genre but I've never fully bought into his comedy skills. With that said, there's no question that the two leads do a remarkable job with their performances and it's their work that makes this film as special as it is. I think Barrymore was downright superb in the part of the producer. Much like the director, when one thinks of Barrymore they don't think of comedy but he actually does a very good job in his over-the-top way. I really enjoyed how far out there the actor was willing to go for a laugh and I think he delivered especially with his line delivery. Lombard is also exceptionally good here and I thought she handled both sides of her character about as good as you could hope for. I really enjoyed her early scenes where she's playing the weak pre-star who is getting pushed around by Barrymore. She's also superb when it comes time for her to be the diva and give the orders. The two really do have a wonderful chemistry together and contain a spark that sets the film off. Both Roscoe Karns and Walter Connolly are also very good as is Etienne Girardot as the crazy man going around putting stickers all over the train. The dialogue is extremely fast and I thought the entire cast did a good job at delivering it. TWENTIETH CENTURY is considered a masterpiece by many and while I wouldn't go that far, there's still no question that it contains charm, laughs and two great performances.

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.