2/5 Too much ham provided by John Barrymore (Jaffe) & Carole
  by JOHN GODFREY (Milwaukee ,WI USA)
Lombard(Lily). They outrageosly overact their way thru this disappointing 1934 comedy. It's a battle of wits as Lily tries to escape the clutches of her director the great Jaffe. He has made her a big success on Broadway. But he is sufficating her with his controlling of her every waking moment. She rebels & flees to Hollywood & becomes a star. Jaffe is a flop after her. Several years pass & they happen to both be traveling on the 20th Century. It is the train traveling between Chicago & New York City in the 30's. The hysteronics commence. I know Lombard is the queen of the screwball comedy genre but the dialogue becomes rather tedious. He plots & schemes to do everything he can to get her to sign a contract. She does everything to evade him. But they are on fast moving train that rarely stops. They are, of course, in love. Neither is a likeable character & they deserve each other.

5/5 A Sparkling Collaboration of 1930's Luminaries
  by R. Schultz (Chicago)
Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht wrote the script for this movie. Howard Hawkes directed. It stars Carole Lombard and John Barrymore as a sort of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne couple. These Hollywood glitterati and literati collaborated to make this sparkling champagne freshet of a movie that should be brought back into wide circulation. Much of it comes across as crisp, modern, and even technologically ahead of its time - as when Barrymore orders a phone tap in an attempt to catch his wife in what he believes are her frequent infidelities.

There might not be many belly laughs here, although I did literally LOL at least once. Barrymore boards the Twentieth Century train in heavy disguise in an attempt to evade his creditors. Once sequestered aboard in his compartment, he laments his dismal situation, meanwhile tugging at the putty on his nose. He pulls the putty into a longer and longer taffy extension, until he's unwittingly achieved a veritable Pinocchio proboscis. Finally, when neither nose nor man is able to sustain any further prolongation of their misery - they droop in unison. It's a hilarious scene.

Barrymore is in top form here. He generally disdained movies, believing they were beneath him. He regarded the legitimate theater as the only medium for the true actor. As a result, he usually chewed up the scenery in his movie rolls, leaving his characters mercilessly shredded. Here though, he strikes just the right note of hamminess. He stops short of being over-the-top in any scene, but retains the kind of antic energy that this sort of madcap comedy calls for.

Barrymore is also at his most handsome in this film. The viewer can readily see how he got the cognomen "The Great Profile." It's a pleasure to go back to a time when there were, not "media figures," but "matinee idols." The latter rarified creatures radiated unattainably from the silver screen - beyond the trivializations of paparazzi or talk shows. This movie allows that sort of transport.

"Twentieth Century" allows another kind of transport though. It might be of special interest to train buffs. Since the real Twentieth Century train made its last run a few years ago, it left many train club members especially eager to collect memorabilia from those old glory days of cross-country luxury travel. It's unlikely that any of the interior train shots in this movie are authentic. Those are probably all just studio lot sets. However there are a few shots of what I took to be the actual Twentieth Century train pulling into New York's Grand Central Station in the early 1930's. Train enthusiasts might like to check out "Twentieth Century" for these shots alone.

Anyone else who would just like to roll along with some breezy, fast-paced dialogue in the company of Hollywood legends - will also want to get on-board.

2/5 beg to differ--disappointing
  by en (new york, ny)
I had high hopes for this film. I love Carole Lombard--Barrymore, Connolly and Hawkes too. But for me, this screwball comedy/farce seems dull and dated.

Lombard is well below par, certainly nothing compared to her work in My Man Godfrey. And unlike Lombard's chemistry with William Powell (her ex-husband in real life)in that film, here she seems to have none with Barrymore.

Barrymore has some good ham moments, as do Connolly and the other sidekick. As a whole, a long 90 minutes, with lots of painfully obvious "humor".

For all the positive reviews here, I think smarter comedies of the period--like My Man Godfrey, The Lady Eve and Philadelphia Story--hold up better today than this one.

4/5 Screwball comedy at it's best
  by William R. Ray (Arden, NC USA)
Like the other reviewers, I don't like the DVD transfer. It could be a lot better. However, it's good enough to view the film and enjoy it. Director Howard Hawks has done a marvelous job of mixing the elements and producing a witty and sometimes hectic comedy. John Barrymore is strictly over the top here, somewhat like Jack Nicholson in the first Batman. This film benefits greatly from being a "pre-code." If the production had occured later, this film would be a waste. As it is, the adult humor shines through and helps carry the film. This also permits Miss Lombard the luxury of wearing some provocative gowns which keeps the male interest going.

The film starts slowly, introducing and building a plot line (there's a plot to screwball comedies?) until we finally get to the train, the Twentieth Century. After that, the nut jobs started coming out of the woodwork and I began laughing till the end of the film. This is a great pre-code screwball comedy. It's a must for Carole Lombard fans and Howard Hawks fans, despite the low grade transfer to DVD.

5/5 Fantastic film looks like a VHS transfer to DVD
  by calvinnme (Fredericksburg, Va)
On top of that there are no extras. The film itself is quite good, being one of the first screwball comedies. Popular later in the 30's because the manic pace of the comedy could make up for the lack of realism due to the imposition of the production code in mid-1934, this film is one of the rare screwball comedies made before the code began to be enforced. John Barrymore shows that besides being a great serious actor he was terrific at physical comedy as well. He even manages to comically jab at some of his own serious performances, such as when Carole Lombard calls him "Svengali", a part which he played in an earlier Warner Brothers film. Carole Lombard hasn't quite reached the peak of her powers yet though, and she comes off as overacting. I just can't figure where some of her screaming is coming from and what or who exactly it is supposed to be directed at.

There is some great comic support in the person of Walter Connally whom Barrymore's Oscar Jaffe is constantly firing and rehiring. The best light touch is in the person of fellow passenger on the "Twentieth Century", Matthew Clark. He goes around the train putting up signs that say "Repent the end is at hand" and also likes writing large checks for which he has no cash reserves. He ends up figuring into the final plot twist in a big way.

One odd thing that has come up in other films from the 30's that also comes up in this one is that apparently people could be arrested and jailed for bad debts. At the height of the depression, credit was very hard to come by and you would basically have to lie to get into debt and be unable to repay, thus the criminal offense. Very different from today's situation.

At any rate, I own this one and after seeing the much clearer presentation on TCM several times, I feel somewhat taken by my purchase. Apparently the good people at TCM could be bothered to present a much clearer transfer than the film's rightful owner, Sony, ended up selling to the public. That is a shame.