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DVD Twentieth Century
Screwball comedy was practically invented by this classic Howard Hawks picture, a breathless farce with not an ounce of sentimentality. John Barrymore, in magnificent form, plays egomaniacal Broadway producer Oscar Jaffe, who molds his latest protégé, Mildred Plotka, into elegant thee-a-tuh star Lily Garland (Carole Lombard). The last hour of the picture has Oscar and Lily, now on the outs, battling each other on the Chicago-to-New York train. These two marvelous creatures are quintessential Hawks characters, figures of pure style who can't exist without the adrenaline and spark so amply supplied by the Hecht-MacArthur script. Hawks's giddyup pacing anticipates Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday, and his deployment of character actors (notably Walter Connolly and Roscoe Karns, as Jaffe's long-suffering, oft-fired flunkies) is sublime. Barrymore and Lombard take it at full speed, grand and horrid and silly and probably meant for each other. --Robert Horton
Barrymore, Lombard And All The Ham You Could Ever Want
"Now don't be nervous, child," says impresario Oscar Jaffe (John Barrymore) during rehearsals to Mildred Plotka (Carole Lombard), a New Jersey shopgirl he's just renamed Lily Garland and thrust into the starring role of Mary Jo Calhoun in Heart of Kentucky. "You're not Lily Garland anymore. You're little Mary Jo Calhoun. The scent of jasmine is floating through the open window of a summer evening. You've just kissed your lover goodnight. You're full of...vibrations."
Lily Garland becomes a star. She and Jaffe have three hits in three years. Although Jaffe is drawn to shapely legs and mirrors, he and Lily become lovers. Then Jaffe makes the mistake one day of tapping her phone to make sure she doesn't stray. Before you can say "ham" Lily is in revolt and on her way to Hollywood by herself. She becomes a huge film star. And Oscar? It's flop after flop without Lily...until by chance they find themselves in adjoining staterooms on the Twentieth Century traveling from Chicago to New York. Can Oscar convince (or trick) Lily into signing a contract with him? Can Lily forgive Oscar? Will the "Repent for the time is at hand" stickers ever come off Oliver Webb's derby? Will Jaffe find the camels, the elephants, the sand for his Obermangau smash he's planning to have Lily star in as Mary Magdalene? Was there ever a faster, funnier and hammier screwball comedy than Twentieth Century?
John Barrymore was a great actor. He also could be a great ham. The two come together here in his amazingly funny, ripe melodramatic performance. He pulls out all stops, clutching his heart, staggering against a door, even picking his nose. When he lowers his eyebrows and glares, it's 100 per cent Smithfield. The screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur gives him some great, self-involved dialogue. Catching Lily kissing her fiance, he dramatically roars at her, "This is the final irony -- mousing around with boys after Oscar Jaffe!" Carole Lombard just about matches him toe to toe. The end of the movie, by the way, is as amusing as the start.
Key elements in the success of the movie are the character parts: Walter Connolly as Oliver Webb, Jaffe's business manager, always being fired, always making some terrible misjudgment; Roscoe Karnes as Owen O'Malley, Jaffe's press agent, wise-cracking and drunk; Etienne Girardot as an elderly religious zealot plastering repent stickers on windows, hats and people's backs, and writing bum checks. Howard Hawks directs with a fast and furious hand. Everything keeps moving, dialogue overlaps, nothing seems stage-bound even though half the movie takes place basically in one of two train staterooms.
This movie is over 70 years old and still plays as one of the best comedies Hollywood ever produced. Barrymore's hamminess is skilled acting. Lombard is gorgeous and gets away with just about as much ham as Barrymore. They're both just inches from over the top and they're funny, funny, funny.
The DVD picture looks just fine, especially considering the age of the movie.
Twentieth Century
One of the great early screwball comedies, and an opportunity to see Barrymore in his funniest performance as the desperate, histrionic Jaffe. As Lily, Lombard is leading lady gorgeous, but also possesses unmatched comic flair. The screenplay, by partners Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht, moves as fast as that train. Get on-board.
"She loves me! I can tell that through her screaming."
Very funny, I love the ol' classic screwball comedies where everyone is screaming hysterically, running madly and falling all over each other.
Oscar 'O.J.' Jaffe, played with psychotic brilliance by John Barrymore, is a hyperactive megalomaniac stage director who after discovering Carole Lombard and making her into a gigantic star smothers her with his controlling nature until she finally has enough and leaves for Hollywood.
After she leaves he has nothing but flops until he's in danger of loosing his theater, so in one desperate last ditch effort he tries to get Lombard back.
How neither Howard Hawks nor John Barrymore got an Oscar nomination for this movie is a mystery to me.
D: Howard Hawks (RIO BRAVO, BRINGING UP BABY)
Oscar 'O.J.' Jaffe - John Barrymore (GRAND HOTEL, DINER AT EIGHT)
Lily Garland - Carole Lombard (MY MAN GODFREY, TO BE OR NOT TO BE)
Oliver Webb - Walter Connolly (IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, LIBELED LADY)
Owen O'Malley - Roscoe Karns (THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT, IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT)
Max Jacobs - Charles Lane (IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, ARSENIC AND OLD LACE)
Mathew J. Clark - Etienne Girardot (THE KENNEL MURDER CASE, THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME '39)
Among the earliest writers to set his sights on the director's chair, Preston Sturges brought a frank, unsentimental view of the war between the sexes to his mid-'40s features that exemplify his style, as demonstrated in this prescient 1942 gem. Architect Tom Jeffers (Joel McCrea) and his wife, Gerry (Claudette Colbert), further refine the archetypal Sturges couple--the male embodying strength, idealism, and a certain naivete, the female ultimately stronger, smarter, and (as revealed early on in an astonishing speech by Colbert) clearer-eyed and more pragmatic about the subtext of sex. This giddy shaggy-dog story follows the couple's split, and Gerry's subsequent flight to Palm Beach. This head-snapping frolic is paced by double-entendres and lampooning looks at the very rich, with... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Claudette Colbert - Joel McCrea Director(s): Preston Sturges DVD Release Date: Released the 01 February 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This silky smooth film noir pits gruff police detective Dana Andrews, stiff and blunt in his street-bred manners, against a cultured columnist and acidic wit (Clifton Webb at his prissiest) in a battle of wits during a murder investigation. The cop is a romantic hiding under a hard-boiled exterior who falls in love with the beautiful victim through the portrait that hangs in her apartment. Gene Tierney, whose heart-shaped face mixes the exotic with the girl next door, brings the poise and calm of a model to her role as the object of every man's gaze and the target of a killer. Laura, handsomely shot in dreamy black and white, is the first and best of Otto Preminger's cool, controlled murder mysteries. In the gritty world of film noir it remains the most refined and elegant example... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gene Tierney - Dana Andrews Director(s): Rouben Mamoulian - Otto Preminger DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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"The love impulse in man," says a psychiatrist in Bringing Up Baby, "frequently reveals itself in terms of conflict." That's for sure. For a primer on the rules and regulations of the classic screwball comedy, which throws love and conflict into close proximity, look no further. A straight-laced paleontologist (Cary Grant) loses a dinosaur bone to a dog belonging to free-spirited heiress Katharine Hepburn. In trying to retrieve said bone, Grant is drawn into the vortex surrounding the delicious Hepburn, which becomes a flirtatious pas de deux that will transform both of them. Director Howard Hawks plays the complications as a breathless escalation of their "love impulse," yet the movie is nonetheless romantic for all its speed. (Hawks's His Girl Friday, also with Grant, goes... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): William Powell DVD Release Date: Released the 01 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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MGM originally promoted Dinner at Eight by touting the "all-star cast," but this is no run-of-the-mill omnibus picture. On the contrary, rather than cramming as many big names as possible into a lumbering vehicle, the movie's impeccably crafted script (by Edna Ferber and Herman J. Mankiewicz) and direction (by George Cukor) gave some immortal screen luminaries a chance to shine. For sheer bravery, John Barrymore's achingly poignant performance as Larry Renault, a washed-up matinee idol who has "outlived everything but his vanity," is unmatched. Barrymore's brother, Lionel, is equally touching as shipping magnate Oliver Jordan. Oliver vainly tries to save his family's century-old firm, at the same time hiding his financial and health troubles from his wife, Millicent, played to... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Marie Dressler - John Barrymore - Wallace Beery Director(s): George Cukor DVD Release Date: Released the 01 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Almost as welcome as a shaker full of martinis, The Complete Thin Man Collection represents an eagerly awaited DVD milestone for fans of the fizzy MGM movie series. The best film in the series came first: The Thin Man (1934), W.S. Van Dyke's marvelous adaptation of a Dashiell Hammet novel. The movie gods were in a generous mood when they paired William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles, the upper-class sophisticates whose sleuthing escapades somehow joined the classic form of the whodunit with the giddyup of screwball comedy. Among the series' many attributes, one of its most radical notions was the idea that a married couple might find each other delightful and view life as a goofy adventure together.
It is common wisdom that the Thin Man sequels... More Info about this DVD Director(s): W.S. Van Dyke DVD Release Date: Released the 02 August 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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