Rent Twentieth Century (1934)

Proto-Screwball. - Twentieth Century review by Steve

Early Howard Hawks comedy which would define the emerging screwball style: the fast talking dames; the played, disorientated male; the crazy, unlikely turn of events; the slapstick visual gags; all set in contemporary urban America.  

Oscar Jaffe (John Barrymore) is a Broadway impresario who discovers Mildred Plotka (Carole Lombard) and turns her into the star Lily Garland. Enraged by her svengali's constant egotistical dominion, she flees to Hollywood and becomes a triumph, while Jaffe slumps into debt. He must win Lily back while they travel to New York on the eponymous train.  

Barrymore is just hilarious, overacting brilliantly, with his melodramatic catchphrases, like 'I lower the iron door' for when he sacks someone, which is frequently. He is astonishing. Lombard gets buffeted a little in the whirlwind of his performance, but she puts up a fight in a role that would make her a big star (the final irony). The support cast doesn't stand a chance.  

It is very, very funny.  It isn't all that emotionally nourishing. But as pure comedy, it is a triumph. Preston Sturges did some work on this and his hand is very evident. It's so much fun watching Lily transform from a timid novice to an egomaniac, almost capable of going into combat with the great Oscar Jaffe.

Enjoyably insane - Twentieth Century review by MS

John Barrymore is hilarious as the megalomaniac theatre director. The best bits are the most bonkers -- all the scenes from the train station disguise on. I especially enjoyed his depiction of his proposed Mary Magdelene movie -- "she'll be covered in emeralds!" "There will be camels! Elephants! Sand!" (or words to that effect).

The rest of the cast is good, too, but he is brilliant.

Lonesome whistles - Twentieth Century review by CH

Much of what happens in Twentieth Century (1934) takes place aboard the eponymous train between Chicago and New York. Apart from providing a timescale in which pell-mell events take place this does not make it exactly a train movie. Despite a few exterior shots against a fast landscape, and the presence of some other passengers including a fraudster, the carriages are so lavish that it might almost be taking place in a series of rooms.

The time spent aboard the train contrasts with the three years traversed by the opening of a film which has seen John Barrymore lift Carole Lombard from advertising-model obscurity to a sensation upon the Broadway stage - something which has also led to their becoming lovers. Such is his overbearing manner that she has fled both bed and stage for Hollywood success, and he has gone into a decline.

Her chancing to be aboard the train brings him the chance to woo her back. From the play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, it is sometimes called the first screwball. If not as freewheeling as later films, including those also directed by Howard Hawks, it has the requisite madcap quality to carry it across quieter moments - and indeed the raucous ones to which both stars are given.