Twentieth Century

Twentieth Century (1934)

The Star of Stars in the Hit of Hits!

A temperamental Broadway producer trains an untutored actress, but when she becomes a star, she proves a match for him.

Date of release
1934-05-11
TMDB
6.8 / 10 (117)
Runtime
1h 31m
Genres
Comedy, Romance
Director
Howard Hawks

Casting

Interesting facts

Twentieth Century is a 1934 American pre-Code screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks and starring John Barrymore, Carole Lombard, Walter Connolly, and Roscoe Karns. Much of the film is set on the 20th Century Limited train as it travels from Chicago to New York City. Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur adapted their 1932 Broadway play of the same name—itself based on the unproduced play Napoleon of Broadway by Charles Bruce Millholland—with uncredited contributions from Gene Fowler and Preston Sturges.

Production

The genesis of Twentieth Century was Napoleon of Broadway, a play by Charles Bruce Millholland about his experiences in working for Broadway producer David Belasco. His play was not produced, but it became the basis for the Hecht–MacArthur comedy, which lasted for 152 performances on Broadway, beginning on December 29, 1932, and which they later adapted for the big screen.

Before Lombard was cast, Columbia boss Harry Cohn negotiated with Eugenie Leontovich, who had played the part on Broadway, and then considered Gloria Swanson and Miriam Hopkins. Other reports say that Ina Claire, Tallulah Bankhead, Ruth Chatterton, Constance Bennett, Ann Harding, Kay Francis, and Joan Crawford were also considered for the lead role by Cohn and Hawks.

During Barrymore's initial reading with her, he looked to Hawks with an expression that showed he did not share Hawks's intuition. The rest of the production went dryly, with Lombard staggering through one scene after another and playing the same stoic characters that she had been taught to portray. Hawks took her aside and asked her what she was being paid for the film.

Lombard and Barrymore became friends during filming. When Barrymore's career was declining, Lombard raised hell to get him to work on her film True Confession (1937).

Preston Sturges was hired to write the screenplay around late November 1933, but was removed from the project a week later because he had not made sufficient progress. Columbia then tried to get Herman Mankiewicz to write it, with Felix Young to produce.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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