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The Great Profile

1940, Movie, NR, 79 mins

The Great Profile: Review

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Art imitates life as Barrymore spoofs himself while playing a character who is a thinly-veiled version of the way he was living at the time. He's a drunken ham who gets thrown off a film and goes astray on a three-day drunk. Now he finds a lousy play and secures some backers for it, takes it to Chicago and opens it. Act One is a bust, and Barrymore decides that he can ad-lib a better Act Two than what was written. So he juices up during the intermission, and the second act is a riot. Ratoff plays Barrymore's long-suffering manager and Hughes his equally long-suffering wife. Ratoff is in the hole to gangster Brophy in a sub-plot that's quickly over. The smaller parts are all well cast, especially Atwill, Lane and Lawrence. But the major interest in the movie has to be Barrymore as himself and knowing full well that we knew that he was near the end of a career. He chews up the scenery with abandon, but that's exactly what we expect him to do so there is no surprise. It's almost a step past satire into burlesque, but Lang's direction keeps it in tow for the cheery ending. Payne is the backer and Baxter is the authoress; these roles could have been played by anyone for all the impact they had. Brophy and Ratoff are funny, although it's sad to see Barrymore, who was probably the greatest Hamlet the US had ever seen, making such sport of himself. He probably enjoyed doing it--at least that was the impression that one received from seeing this extraordinary film. Marc Lawrence plays his usual heavy, a role he's been doing for almost 50 years--and nobody does it better. leave a comment
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