Cinema: The New Pictures: May 14, 1934

Twentieth Century (Columbia). This febrile saga of a journey on New York Central's crack train was a Broadway success last year (TIME, Jan. 9, 1933). Authors Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur transcribed it into cinema by thinking up new and fantastic situations, by enlarging to heroic proportions the frenzied, egomaniac character of Impresario Oscar Jaffe (John Barrymore), and by detailing the way he discovers a lingerie model named Mildred Plotka (Carole Lombard), turns her into Lily Garland the Great Actress, bullies her and loses her to Hollywood. Thereafter Jaffe, who resembles...

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