This breezy early screwball comedy offers up a grizzled acting veteran (John Barrymore) volleying with a budding young starlet (Carole Lombard in her first major role). Barrymore is the bug-eyed theater director, convinced of his own genius; Lombard is the unknown actress whom Barrymore plucks out of obscurity and who then gets successful and leaves him for movie stardom. A few years later, he’s near bankruptcy and she’s big box office. They happen to be on the same train one night, him at his lowest point and her at her peak, and Barrymore connives to get her into his new play. I laughed a good fifteen times.
A lot of great names are behind this one. Howard Hawks directs. Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur write the script based on their Broadway play.