Twentieth Century

Twentieth Century is a 1934 American screwball comedy film set on the 20th Century Limited train. The film was directed by Howard Hawks, stars John Barrymore and Carole Lombard, and features Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns and Edgar Kennedy. Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur adapted their Broadway play of the same name – itself based on the unproduced play Napoleon of Broadway by Charles Bruce Millholland – with uncredited contributions from Gene Fow... more

Twentieth Century is a 1934 American screwball comedy film set on the 20th Century Limited train. The film was directed by Howard Hawks, stars John Barrymore and Carole Lombard, and features Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns and Edgar Kennedy. Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur adapted their 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. Along with Frank Capra's It Happened One Night, also released in 1934, Twentieth Century is considered to be a prototype for the screwball comedy. Larger-than-life Broadway impresario Oscar Jaffe (John Barrymore) takes an unknown lingerie model named Mildred Plotka (Carole Lombard) and makes her the star of his latest play, despite the grave misgivings of everyone else, including his two long-suffering assistants, accountant Oliver Webb (Walter Connolly) and Owen O'Malley (Roscoe Karns). Through intensive training,... less