Twentieth Century

John Barrymore and Carol Lombard riff it up in this loose, free-wheeling ad-lib showcase about a famed stage auteur in decline and his attempts to ensnare a starlet who's grown too big for such productions. Some of the zingers are great, and I was surprised by a risquée religious subplot (for the era, at least, and censors were too - it was a struggle keeping it in the film) but the key characters were so universally unlikable that I never felt invested in how anything turned out. Most of the key scenes revolve around a pair of snooty, high-society blowhards who shout it out in a long series of barbed, venomous arguments and clumsy, failed manipulations. Which gives each plenty of ammunition for their comedic material, of course, but the roads aren't paved much further than that. Silly but inconsequential, I'm sure the set was more entertaining than the finished product. It's like a Will Ferrell ensemble flick from the age of the Marx Brothers. I'd have loved to see the outtakes.