Twentieth Century (1934)

Film: Twentieth Century (1934)

Stars: John Barrymore, Carole Lombard, Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns

Director: Howard Hawks

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Carole Lombard-click here to learn more about Ms. Lombard (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Last week we discussed the earliest stages of Carole Lombard's career, when she was being romanced on (but not yet off) screen by Clark Gable, and was still married to William Powell, which brought her an amount of celebrity that she wasn't really earning onscreen.  In 1934, though, she made what seemed immediately after as a mistake-she turned down the lead role in It Happened One Night, which would eventually go to Claudette Colbert, and win her an Oscar (to be fair to Lombard here, Loretta Young also turned down the part & Clark Gable wasn't thrilled about doing it either...no one knew they were headed to immortality on that film's set).  Instead, she made a couple of modest hits (Bolero, We're Not Dressing), and then was put in Twentieth Century.  This movie would not be a hit-it was a bit of a flop with audiences...but it would completely change the course of Carole Lombard's career.

(Spoilers Ahead) Twentieth Century is about a cruel, bombastic (but genius) director named Oscar Jaffe (Barrymore), who has been tasked with making a lingerie model named Mildred Plotka (renamed Lily Garland, and played by Lombard) into a stage star.  Though he basically tortures her (this movie rings a lot differently in the #MeToo era, though in the film his treatment of Lily is played for laughs), it works.  Lily is splendid in the show, with a knack for the stage, and they continue working together in a series of huge hits.  Lily, though, dumps Oscar once she's outgrown him personally & professionally, and moves to Hollywood achieving stardom.  Oscar, though, can't live without his muse, and produces a string of flops, and at one point to stave off his collectors, disguises himself aboard the Twentieth Century Limited, a train headed from Chicago to NYC (and back again).  Lily is on the train, and though she pities Oscar to a degree, she doesn't want to work with him again, and is going to make a play with his rival.  Oscar, though, tricks Lily in the closing scenes of the play into thinking he's dying, and making her sign a contract with him while she's overcome with emotion...and then he uncovers his charade, but she's already under contract.  The film ends with the two of them reunited, in their own version of tortured codependence.

Twentieth Century sounds meaner than it is (that description makes it sound like Lily is a constant victim, which while she is certainly the injured of the two, the movie doesn't really come across that way).  The film is such fun (though it's worth noting, it's not It Happened One Night).  Most of the joy from the film doesn't come from the script (which is wry, but not breaking a lot of ground), but from the two leads.  Barrymore, in particular, is sensational as Oscar Jaffe.  He plays him with comic genius, overacting (blissfully) and riding this character til dawn.  If you've read this blog for a while you know I have a fondness for John Barrymore (I also thought he was marvelous in Dinner at Eight), though Twentieth Century was the end-of-the-road for the troubled actor as a regular leading man.  Due to his alcoholism, he'd basically be unemployable soon, playing bit parts in film until his death from cirrhosis at the age of 60 in 1942 (despite his vast age difference & poor health even when they were filming he would outlive his Twentieth Century leading lady by a few months).  But more on that in a few weeks.

While Barrymore is the revelation in this cast, Lombard is nearly his equal.  To this point in her career she'd never shown the incredible knack for screwball comedy she displays here, not just eating into the one-liners, but also the physical comedy bits in the film as well.  While audiences didn't warm to this movie, critics did, and noted how Lombard seemed at-ease in a part like this, and was soon being cast in similar films.  Just two years later, she'd be an Oscar nominee & have graduated from leading lady to one of the most famous women in America...a status she almost certainly wouldn't have reached without this gem.