Twentieth Century

Finally got around to this essential and seminal screwball film. It is hysterical in every sense of the word. John Barrymore, one of the screen’s greatest over-actors, is in top form as the egotistical theater director who disdains actors but can out-ham anyone in a train compartment or boudoir. Carole Lombard, the genre’s first lady, screeches and howls through her part as the ingenue terrible who lets fame go to her head. Both prowl every corner of the screen and lend every muscle in their bodies to their performances; the film is, among other things, a masterpiece of comic choreography. Dialogue is as quick-witted as you’d expect from Hawks and Hecht. A great genre-defining film.