Capital Celluloid 2020 – Day 16: Thu Jan 16

Twentieth Century (Hawks, 1934): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 6.10pm


This presentation, also being screened on January 29th, of the Howard Hawks classic is part of the Carole Lombard season at BFI Southbank. You can find the full details here.

Chicago Reader review:
To register a minority opinion, I find this knockdown screwball farce (1934), directed by Howard Hawks four years before Bringing Up Baby, six years before His Girl Friday, and fifteen before I Was a Male War Bride, a great deal funnier than all three. It costars John Barrymore and Carole Lombard at their hyperbolic best as egomaniacal theatrical monsters, a director and a star in a series of duels. The story comes from a play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur that lampoons theatrical excess as much as The Front Page lampoons journalistic excess—a subject that Hawks can view with greater familiarity. The show here belongs almost entirely to the fast-talking stars, mainly having it out on the cross-country train of the title, and the movie is a veritable concerto for their remarkable talents, put across by Hawks with maximal energy and voltage.
Jonathan Rosenabum

Here (and above) Peter Bogdanovich recommends the film.

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