Live stream preview

Watch this video and more on The Criterion Channel

Watch this video and more on The Criterion Channel

Start your free trial Learn more

Already subscribed? Sign in

Directed by Howard Hawks

Twentieth Century

1h 31m

Directed by Howard Hawks • 1934 • United States
Starring John Barrymore, Carole Lombard, Walter Connolly

Carole Lombard established her genius for screwball comedy with this madcap classic, which practically set the template for the genre. Scripted by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur (adapting their own Broadway play) and directed at breakneck pace by Howard Hawks, TWENTIETH CENTURY unfolds in large part aboard the titular train en route from Chicago to New York. Onboard are Lily Garland (Lombard), a shopgirl turned movie star, and down-on-his-luck Broadway producer Oscar Jaffe (John Barrymore), Lily’s former lover and impresario, who will stop at nothing to convince her to star in his new show. Reunited by fate aboard the speeding locomotive, the pair match wits in a dazzling display of comic firepower.

Up Next in Directed by Howard Hawks

  • The Criminal Code
    1:36:22
    The Criminal Code

    The Criminal Code

    Directed by Howard Hawks • 1931 • United States
    Starring Walter Huston, Phillips Holmes, Constance Cummings

    This hard-edged, morally complex pre-Code drama of crime and punishment stars Walter Huston as a crusading district attorney who winds up becoming warden of the prison where many of the me...

  • The Big Sky
    2:18:11
    The Big Sky

    The Big Sky

    Directed by Howard Hawks • 1952 • United States
    Starring Kirk Douglas, Dewey Martin, Elizabeth Threatt

    Howard Hawks’s epic western adventure stars Kirk Douglas as pioneer Jim Deakins, the leader of the first expedition to navigate up the Missouri River. In a daring journey to expand the fur trad...

×