peteg's blog - noise - movies - 2022 11 08 TwentiethCentury

Twentieth Century (1934)

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Carole Lombard completism. She's pretty good here. Also for Howard Hawks's direction. In black-and-white John Barrymore turns Lombard's lingerie model into a Broadway star. She outgrows him (he never grows) and becomes a Hollywood star. There's an epic reconciliation on a train on the "Twentieth Century" line from Chicago to NYC. It's a comedic, stagy commentary on staginess, like To Be or Not to Be, and while it has some early moments it overstays its welcome by about half an hour.

Mordaunt Hall at the time.