After the seriously intense 'Of Human Bondage' and 'The Petrified Forest', Leslie Howard and Bette Davis were reunited for the final time in this frivolous screwball comedy with occasional saucy asides that go about as far as the Hays Code would then permit. It jokily begins with the two playing Romeo and Juliet on stage, which Howard (aged 43) had just played in an MGM super-production with Norma Shearer and John Barrymore, whose role in 'Twentieth Century' this strongly recalls.
Davis looks great, but her role is this time very secondary; and it's a shame she shares so little screen time with the radiant young Olivia de Havilland, who supplies most of the film's romance, along with Eric Blore (in a centre-parted toupee, wing collar and dinner jacket that make him look like Renfield) as Howard's dresser whose command of Shakespeare far surpasses Howard's, and who he follows about throughout the film devotedly wagging his tail and imitating birds. Also funny in smaller parts are Spring Byington, Bonita Granville, E.E.Clive and Grace Field.
Davis looks great, but her role is this time very secondary; and it's a shame she shares so little screen time with the radiant young Olivia de Havilland, who supplies most of the film's romance, along with Eric Blore (in a centre-parted toupee, wing collar and dinner jacket that make him look like Renfield) as Howard's dresser whose command of Shakespeare far surpasses Howard's, and who he follows about throughout the film devotedly wagging his tail and imitating birds. Also funny in smaller parts are Spring Byington, Bonita Granville, E.E.Clive and Grace Field.