"zoth Century." At the Plaza Joiu BARRYMORE, who once played
Hamlet in London, hr,s played almost every kind of part during his long career on stage and screen in the United States. I prefer him in comedy, and his- rendering in 20th Century of the posturing actor-manager, Oscar Jaffe, is his best work for some time. Miss Carole Lombard is in equally good form as the shy young actress whom Jaffe turns into a star as temperamental as himself, and the film is devoted almost entirely to their quarrels, partings and final re-union. It is too long and too repetitive, and the part referring to the Oberammergau Passion Play, which inspires Jaffe with the notion of pro- ducing a biblical spectacle full of camels and courtesans, is in bad taste and quite unnecessary. Most of the later action, too, happens on board a train-the 20th Century Limited from Chicago to New York-which means a rather cramped atmosphere and a complete lack of pictorial interest, but within these limitations the film is unusually entertaining, chiefly because it deals throughout with the type of quick-fire episode which Hollywood thoroughly understands and knows how to handle with a lively command of tersely expressive detail.
There are a good many amusing passages, well supplied with racy dialogue, and an effectively sardonic commentary is contributed by Walter Connolly as Jaffe's business manager and Roscoe Karrs as his press-agent. But the production owes its success above all to Mr. Etarrymore, who not only handles the burlesque scenes with admirable verve but manages to make Oscar Jaffe, for all his absurdities, a human • and even a likeable personality.
411.t.w.s DAVY.
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