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Twentieth Century Movie Review

Twentieth Century is a 1934 screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks and starring John Barrymore and Carole Lombard. It’s a solidly written, but messy movie.

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“Go on, Owen… Tell her I’m dying… And don’t overact!“

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A flamboyant Broadway impresario who has fallen on hard times tries to get his former lover, now a Hollywood diva, to return and resurrect his failing career. My main issue with this movie is that it simply isn’t all that funny. I never laughed once watching it. And this comes from a huge screwball comedy fan, but the movie simply did not work for me in that way.

The reason why I didn’t find it funny lies in its overly frenetic pacing and structure along with the dialogue that contains characters screaming at each other throughout the entire film. Now, that can work, especially when the dialogue is well written. And it is well written here. However it oftentimes frustrated me as they would never stop yelling at each other, making for a rather repetitious and tiresome viewing experience.

Carole Lombard was overacting way too much in this role. The role called for it for sure, but still she went overboard with it, at times being too unhinged, but unrealistically so. I simply never bought her in what is one of her weaker roles. On the other hand, we’ve got John Barrymore. He is hamming it up here as well, but he was still much more effective, believable and highly charismatic. I bought him in the role and he stole this movie for me. Other characters are all uninteresting and unimportant.

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The bulk of Twentieth Century consists of these two characters throwing temper tantrums. And I actually appreciated the characterization that they devoted to both of them in spite of them being too over-the-top. At times the movie was genuinely charming in their toxic relationship that was very memorable in the least. Howard Hawks was always very good at getting star turns from his actors and making a cinematic movie out of just one or few settings, which is mostly what he did here too. The train served as a lovely setting and some plot scenarios were pleasantly unique and chaotic. I just wished that the movie was funnier.