The Great Profile

This is an excellent comedy about an actor on his last legs hamming it up for his own amusement. I reject any of the evaluations here that rely on Mr. Barrymore's real life or condition at the time of making of this film. I don't see the logical connection. It's a funny movie, with Barrymore skillfully playing his part. I understand our English and arts departments in universities are infested with an irresistible need to analyze and judge everything not by what it is, but the conditions, times, politics, and philosophies of the people who produced them. If that makes sense to you, then you can't enjoy the Marx Brothers without bearing in mind Groucho's unhappy marriages, Chico's gambling mania, Zeppo's desire to leave performing and become a Hollywood agent, etc. Barrymore is a terrific comic actor in this film. Do you really care about his life off-screen to decide whether to enjoy it? Read about Barrymore all you want (including Ben Hecht's memoirs, A Child of the Century) and try to catch Christopher Plummer's one-man show, recently on PBS. But for heaven's sake, leave off the higher criticism or whatever the hell you call referencing stuff that's not in the work itself.

Great Profile, The (1940)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Incredibly bizarre and rather sad comedy has John Barrymore playing himself but the comedy brings more frowns than laughs. In the film Barrymore plays an actor who's pretty much been kicked out of Hollywood due to his drinking habits but he's given another chance by a young playwrite who feels her latest play can bring the actor back to top. The play fails but the actor comes out on stage drunk, which causes huge laughter in the crowd and turns the play into a hit. However, the young playwrite would rather have a sober actor rather than a hit play but this doesn't sit well with the producer. Yes, this is a comedy about an alcoholic that people want to get drunk so that people will laugh at him. Knowing Barrymore's history with alcohol, I can't say that this film made me laugh. The humor doesn't sit or play well today but the strange thing is that the only successful part of the movie comes during the first play performance when Barrymore goes on stage drunk. The actors maniac style really makes for some hilarious moments but everything else here falls flat on its face. The film is pretty dull, lifeless and just not that interesting. The attempts at humor might have worked in 1940 but today they just come off as sad and its made even sadder that Barrymore has to do it. Mary Beth Hughes, Gregory Ratoff, John Payne, Anne Baxter and Lionel Atwill play support.

THE GREAT PROFILE is not much more than JOHN BARRYMORE spoofing himself as an actor who can only inspire an audience when he's drunk. Otherwise, the feeble play he's in doesn't do anything to keep the audience awake.

What makes the film a point of curious interest more than anything else, is watching Barrymore reading his lines from cue cards off screen--something he did in many a film made before and after this one. By this time, it became a necessity if the director wanted to get the film in on budget.

MARY BETH HUGHES is his sassy blonde wife, one of those actresses from the '40s who was always cast as "the beautiful blonde with attitude" and ANNE BAXTER makes an early appearance at seventeen, already a capable enough actress as a woman who has faith in promoting the actor when her play is successful, but only when he's in the cups. Barrymore's only reason for agreeing to perform in her play is based purely on the money she offers to back it. And that, essentially, is the plot, with Barrymore insisting that his wife play opposite him.

I was never a John Barrymore fan and all I can say is that he confirms his "ham" status with his role here. It's hard to discern any difference between his acting when he's playing "Hamlet" (in true ham fashion) or acting as himself. And unfortunately, his is not the only weary performance it's a strain to watch. GREGORY RATOFF, as his fast-talking manager, seems to have been struck by the same bug.

As the young playwright, ANNE BAXTER gives the only calmly underplayed performance, although her patience with the overwhelming Barrymore is hard to find credible. And to his credit, JOHN PAYNE shows a flair for comedy in a thankless supporting role.

The plot is a silly one with Barrymore making a complete burlesque of his role--and the others not far behind. It's hard to take any of this seriously enough to warrant more than casual attention.

Tedium sets in after the first fifteen minutes and it never lets up.

Summing up: Easy to skip. Between Ratoff and Barrymore, too much ham.

The 20th Century Fox DVD I purchased of this film had some interesting text on the cover. It said that "The Great Profile" was an autobiographical movie about John Barrymore's life. Really? Would Barrymore have made an intentional movie that parodied his own alcoholism and his associated acting demise as a result of it?

The movie clearly has a plot that does resemble Barrymore's life. It probably also resembles any number of other actors of the day. More than a few saw their careers tank due to booze or drugs. The same has been true for actresses. Barrymore played other roles besides this one in which his character was alcoholic, or often drunk. But, as a recovering alcoholic myself, I question that he would intentionally have played a role in a movie that was meant to portray his real life. Most alcoholics live in denial about their drinking ever being a problem until one of two things happens. They (we) reach a stage of ultimate surrender to the booze with a high and mighty attitude of "so what?" or "that's my business" which then generally leads to death in time. Or, we hit bottom and find recovery through one or more of many different ways.

Well, less than two years after this movie came out, John Barrymore would be dead, due to cirrhosis of the liver and pneumonia. In the early 1930s, the first years of sound pictures, Barrymore gave some very good performances, although his drinking affected other roles. He made just one excellent comedy - "Twentieth Century" in 1934. In that film, Barrymore's hamminess was so deliberate and over the top that one couldn't help but laugh. In this film, it seems more something for a disoriented actor to fall back on, and it doesn't have the comedic touch.

In this film, Barrymore seems to be sober at times, and perhaps just playing drunk at other times. But biographies and books say that in his last several years he couldn't remember his lines and had to have cue cards. So, it's likely that was the case with this film. And, it's also likely that his drunk scenes here were more than acting - maybe just part acting.

This is supposed to be a comedy, but there's not much funny here. My guess is that the script played up the part of Boris Mefoofsky, the agent of Barrymore's Evans Garrick. Gregory Ratoff plays that role. But it's not funny beyond the first instance maybe, when the nervous and harried Boris is at wit's end over Garrick's whereabouts. After that, the constant efforts of Boris to dodge some debt collectors from the mob are flat as a pancake. His antics and lines soon become irritating,

The rest of the cast do their best, but Mary Beth Hughes, John Payne, Anne Baxter and others just have too little to contribute to lift this film as a comedy. The film wouldn't even earn five stars if not for the general efforts of the cast and an occasional spark of humor from Garrick or someone else.

Here are the few good lines I heard.

Confucius, "This time I think master dead."

Evans Garrick, "Ingratitude - thy name is woman."

Evans Garrick, "I've got it. Tomorrow I shall enter a monastery." Boris Mefoofsky, "If you find a Russian one, I'll go with you."

Evans Garrick, to Mefoofsky, "Your troubles, my friend, belong to this life. Not to the sanctuary to which I am going."

Mary Maxwell, "You, you love me?" Evans Garrick, "More than life itself." Mary, "But... are you sure you're not confusing gratitude with love?" Garrick, "I'm old enough to know whether I'm in love or not."

Richard Lansing, "Well, I only thought..." Mary Maxwell, "I know what you thought, you evil-minded....Philadelphian."

... it were not so close to the sad truth of the final years of John Barrymore's life - Barrymore disappearing from the set and going off on a bender, an on-again-off-again relationship with a a much younger fourth wife that was out for what she could get for herself, Barrymore addicted to the drink and unable to get work in his final days unless he was parodying himself.

As the film opens Evan Garrick (John Barrymore) has run out on his studio for the last time. The studio fires him from his current film role and tears up his contract, and his wife and agent leave him. In true Barrymore fashion he says good riddance to both. Into his life appears aspiring playwright Mary Maxwell (Anne Baxter), who tries to recruit him to play the lead in the script she has just finished. At first Garrick is going to throw her out, but when he learns that Mary's fiancé already has decided to back the play he quickly reconsiders, given that he is 12,000 dollars overdrawn on his bank account.

The play turns out to be horribly hammy and boring, and looks like it is headed for failure when Garrick decides to relieve his tension after the first act with a little alcohol. When he comes out drunk for the second act his antics have the audience in stitches. However, author Mary Maxwell is not amused and wants to close the play. When the critics judge the play a success - not realizing it is just a drunk Garrick carrying on - everyone involved convinces Mary that Garrick just needs reforming, and that she shouldn't turn her back on him. They never realize she'll take them seriously and actually reform him. A sober Garrick gets them back where they were - a bad play, an unresponsive audience, and a greatly diminished box office. What's worse, Garrick is now stealing Mary away from her fiancé (John Payne). How can this thing end happily? I'll let you watch and find out.

What makes this work is that Anne Baxter is out-hamming Barrymore throughout so that his self-parody does not seem so over-reaching. Gregory Ratoff is hilarious as Garrick's agent who is on the run from the mob over an eight thousand dollar gambling debt and needs to make the play a success if he doesn't want to wind up in a cement overcoat. A young John Payne has the role of Mary's fiancé.

Like I said in the beginning, the less you know about the truth of John Barrymore's final days the funnier this will be to you. It really is a good comedy.