20TH CENTURY (1934) I (pretty much) hated it.

[FrankFay]

I wish they'd had someone besides Lloyd Ingram in it though.

I would prefer even a bad Lloyd Ingram performance to nearly anything from Malcolm MacDowell. Why he had such a substantial career at Universal and MGM is a mystery to me. He's a handsome piece of wood.

Frank
I think you mean Lloyd Hughes. Lloyd Ingram, a generation older than Hughes born in 1874, WAS an actor and a director as well responsible for such wonderful drek as THE ISLE OF LOVE(aka OVER THE RHINE)1918.

Malcolm MacDowell can be a forceful actor when he wants to be. Usually people like to quote A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, but check out MacDowell as the squadron commander in ACE'S HIGH(1976/77) a little seen war film with Christopher Plummer. He should've played more military guys.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu5x8rOxK44

Allriiight..... don't lay it on so heavy. I meant Malcom MacGregor, who played opposite Norma Shearer in LADY OF THE NIGHT and Dolores Costello in A MILLION BID....and my stick of wood impression still stands.

[FrankFay]

TWENTIETH CENTURY is one of only two talkies that supports John Barrymore's reputation as one of the greatest actors of his time.

They're just his two best movies, and since they get the most attention due to their directors, they're what people tend to think of when think of Barrymore's most prominent performances. But you can be a great actor and still star in non-great material. Barrymore was a great actor because he could be magnetic even in utter trash. There's a moment in Playmates, an otherwise putrid film, where he recites Hamlet's "To Be or Not to Be" soliloquy, and it's quite likely the best version caught on film.
Barrymore also did superb work in good films like State's Attorney, Topaze, Reunion in Vienna, True Confession, and The Great Man Votes. He would regarded as a first-rate screen actor based on those performances alone. Unfortunately, all but one of those films are unavailable on DVD.

The man ended in comedy as he had begun in comedy and theres nothing wrong with that.

Exactly. His later comedic roles may have not been Hamlet, but in many of them (such as Midnight) you can see an actor who's truly enjoying himself.

Barrymore DID do some fine work in talkies, but he ended up playing fairly minor roles (the Bulldog Drummond pictures) or a seemingly endless gallery of eccentrics: a frazzled teacher (TOPAZE) a drunken teacher (THE GREAT MAN VOTES) a mad scientist (THE INVISIBLE WOMAN). He was able to shine a bit in these, but it's the sparkle of a piece of broken glass rather than a diamond.

[IA]

Barrymore DID do some fine work in talkies, but he ended up playing fairly minor roles (the Bulldog Drummond pictures) or a seemingly endless gallery of eccentrics: a frazzled teacher (TOPAZE) a drunken teacher (THE GREAT MAN VOTES) a mad scientist (THE INVISIBLE WOMAN). He was able to shine a bit in these, but it's the sparkle of a piece of broken glass rather than a diamond.

Barrymore's sound career was definitely not all it could have been, but it's still pretty rich when taken on its own merits. He played many eccentric roles, but some of them happened also to be leading ones (as in Topaze, The Great Man Votes, Reunion in Vienna) that carried the picture. And though some believe his work in Grand Hotel, Dinner at Eight, and Bill of Divorcement is stagy, I believe the adjective is overstated--all of those roles were histrionic in essence, and Barrymore elsewhere toned things down. The ham image doesn't fully cover his screen career.

[Daniel Eagan]

Fred Allen once made a rather cruel joke about Barrymore around 1941, saying he was "now stooging for Rudy Vallee".

Fred Allen had head up his a**, and the same thing could be said about Barrymore biographer and pal Gene Fowler

Allen was merely making a joke, perhaps tasteless but a joke just the same (this was in '41 - Allen said it on his "Jack Benny's 10th anniversary on radio" show). It was also true that roles for Barrymore dried up by then.

Yes, you would expect similar jokes from today's late night hosts about celebrities like Lindsay Lohan, not that Barrymore was ever the train wreck that she's become.

Allen's wit was pretty caustic, so listeners of the time probably didn't mind as much. My favorite Allen line: "When it's nine o'clock in New York, it's 1947 in Los Angeles."

[Jim Roots]

Allen's wit was pretty caustic, so listeners of the time probably didn't mind as much. My favorite Allen line: "When it's nine o'clock in New York, it's 1947 in Los Angeles."

That joke would have more punch here if you told us what year Allen made it.


Jim

[sepiatone]

I wish they'd had someone besides Lloyd Ingram in it though.

I would prefer even a bad Lloyd Ingram performance to nearly anything from Malcolm MacDowell. Why he had such a substantial career at Universal and MGM is a mystery to me. He's a handsome piece of wood.

Frank
I think you mean Lloyd Hughes. Lloyd Ingram, a generation older than Hughes born in 1874, WAS an actor and a director as well responsible for such wonderful drek as THE ISLE OF LOVE(aka OVER THE RHINE)1918.

Malcolm MacDowell can be a forceful actor when he wants to be. Usually people like to quote A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, but check out MacDowell as the squadron commander in ACE'S HIGH(1976/77) a little seen war film with Christopher Plummer. He should've played more military guys.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu5x8rOxK44

Allriiight..... don't lay it on so heavy. I meant Malcom MacGregor, who played opposite Norma Shearer in LADY OF THE NIGHT and Dolores Costello in A MILLION BID....and my stick of wood impression still stands.

Frank, you did that on purpose , tripping us up on that Malcolm MacGregor, Malcolm MacDowell 'connection'. I never would have guessed a mistaking of MacGregor for MacDowell but the Universal ,, MGM reference should have been a clue. But MacGregor, I must confess, haven't seen too much of his work . Would like to someday see SMOULDERING FIRES and ALL THE BROTHERS WERE VALIANT would be nice as but it is hopelessly lost.

[FrankFay]

He's decent in Smoldering Fires, and in The Circle. He's handsome and not the worst actor, I'm just puzzled as to his popularity. Oh well, tastes change.

[Ray Faiola]

LLoyd Ingraham did tons of character parts in the 30's, including the man waiting for his duck dinner in MODERN TIMES!

[Gene Zonarich]

It seems as though John Barrymore could rise to the occasion as in "Grand Hotel" where he was part of an "all-star" cast. I don't remember the order of billing in the credits but in a film with Garbo, Crawford, Beery, brother Lionel he gives what I think is the best performance in the film -- and yet it's an understated one, especially compared to Garbo and Lionel B.

[mndean]

Fred Allen had head up his a**, and the same thing could be said about Barrymore biographer and pal Gene Fowler

Allen was merely making a joke, perhaps tasteless but a joke just the same (this was in '41 - Allen said it on his "Jack Benny's 10th anniversary on radio" show). It was also true that roles for Barrymore dried up by then.

Yes, you would expect similar jokes from today's late night hosts about celebrities like Lindsay Lohan, not that Barrymore was ever the train wreck that she's become.

Allen's wit was pretty caustic, so listeners of the time probably didn't mind as much. My favorite Allen line: "When it's nine o'clock in New York, it's 1947 in Los Angeles."

Barrymore certainly wasn't that sort of trainwreck, he still showed flashes of his old talent even in '41, but I would guess that scuttlebutt in Hollywood and New York were pretty dismal as to his future.

Allen once had a surprising (for the time, it was '39) segment in his Town Hall Tonight show, where he interviewed a (real, no actor impersonation) Pullman porter who was on the NYC 20th Century run, Allen treated him with respect and the gentleman was obviously nothing like how porters were generally depicted in Hollywood films of the time. The one bit of caustic humor there was after finding out about what was the largest tip the porter received, Allen asked the porter to size him up as to what sort of tip he would leave. The porter admitted he looked like a dismal prospect.

[precode]

20C is on my all-time ten best list, so no more need be said on that count. And yes, the yelling-and-screaming is what makes it so great, because these are cartoons, not "real people," and feed off each other's anger. I saw the play on Broadway a few years ago with Alec Baldwin and Anne Heche, and despite the different takes on the characters, the hollering remained intact. Blame Hecht and MacArthur (instead of Hawks) if you want, but that's the way people like this behave. Certainly you don't get any of this in BRINGING UP BABY, or even MONKEY BUSINESS. It's correct for this particular tale.

BTW, last month Cinevent ran WORLD PREMIERE, which is essentially a 20C knock-off with JB as a nearly identical character, and for all his dissipation, he's still very funny in it. And I've always loved his work in another late comedy, THE INVISIBLE WOMAN.

Mike S.

"STAY WHERE YOU ARE, JU-DAS IS-CAR-I-OT!!!"