The Great Profile

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.

Some classic age actors, when seen today, appear hammy and using old-fashioned technique. And some are timeless. John Barrymore is timeless and, in one of his last films, "The Great Profile," he lampoons himself mercilessly - in the role of a ham with old-fashioned technique. The story is based on what really happened to the actor during a play called "My Own Children." The actor Evans Garrick (Barrymore) has been missing for three days. When he arrives home drunk, he's in costume and he's reciting Shakespeare, believing that he just left a film set an hour earlier. Infuriated, his wife Sylvia (Mary Beth Hughes) leaves him. Then pretty Mary Maxwell (17-year-old Anne Baxter) arrives with a play she is desperate for Garrick to do. He gets rid of her by saying he will meet her in his agent's office the next day. His agent (Gregory Ratoff) owes some mobsters $8200 and when he hears that Ms. Maxwell has a wealthy fiancée, Richard Lansing (John Payne) who will back the play, he's all for it. It's a complete disaster, but it gets Sylvia back from Reno as soon as she hears about it, and she wins back her role. Totally polluted by the second act, Garrick makes the play a hit by ad-libbing and finally rolling off of the stage in a wheelchair. Ms. Maxwell is finally convinced to take what she considered her serious drama into New York, where it's been booked for a six-month run, but she takes Garrick in hand to sober him up. Everyone's unhappy - her fiancée and Garrick's agent in particular, since the play is deathly if Garrick isn't drunk.

Strangely enough, most of this actually happened to Barrymore in real life, including his wife leaving him and returning to get her part back in New York. And she did hide in Barrymore's wardrobe as Garrick's wife does in the film, though in real life, Barrymore's daughter Diana tried to keep her from doing so.

Barrymore is extremely dissipated in "The Great Profile" and reads his lines off of cue cards, which toward the end, he did often. For people who say he's a ham, I say he was playing one. He does Hamlet with a quivering sing-song voice. Does anyone believe this is actually how he played his famous Hamlet? He was Olivier's inspiration for the role. Olivier first played Hamlet in 1937 and was known for speaking the dialogue instead of singing it.

There are some very funny moments in "The Great Profile" but in the end, it's a bizarre movie, enlivened by Barrymore's presence. If you want to see a non-hammy Barrymore, I suggest "The Great Man Votes" or "Bill of Divorcement." He was a great actor with a big personality - if that seems strange by today's standards, well, it's the pictures that got small.

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."

This was Anne Baxter's second film in her debut year, and as a 17 year old she had quite a posh voice and the beauty of youth. Her facial structure was exactly the same as we came to know her in later films, but she hadn't yet developed her dark beauty. She had a button nose and small pursed lips that promised sensuality. Apart from that, not much in this film.

Even in his last days John Barrymore always retained a healthy sense of humor about himself. He knew himself inside and out and in these last films like The Great Profile the last ounces of his talent he's giving to film audiences. Soon there would be nothing left.

Watching The Great Profile and seeing Barrymore has all the fascination of a train wreck. Knowing his history you seem compelled to watch it and make no mistake it's a funny film, but there's an underlying sadness to it.

There's a pale reflection of his performance as Oscar Jaffe in Twentieth Century. Barrymore is married to Mary Beth Hughes and she's ready to ditch him. So's just about everybody else in town. But Anne Baxter in her second film plays an Eve Harrington like fan. She's written a play and she wants The Great Profile to star. He goes into his usual shtick with her about how great art is a reward unto itself, but when he hears she comes with financing through her rich boyfriend John Payne, he more than relents. After all offers aren't piling up with him.

When Barrymore during out of town tryouts comes on blasted to the gills, Hughes walks out refusing to be humiliated by him any more, but the thing which Baxter wrote as a romantic drama is turned into a comedy smash. Kind of like a dipsomaniac version of Olsen&Johnson's Hellzapoppin'. No two performances were ever the same, but they were all good. Then Baxter takes it into her head to reform him and it nearly kills the goose that's laying all their golden eggs.

Reading here that this was originally intended for Adolph Menjou, I almost wish Menjou did it. Menjou certainly could do broad comedic performances, look at him in Golddiggers of 1935 for instance. Barrymore's dissipation because he was such a public figure was carried out in all the media.

As I said Barrymore was a man who had a sense of humor. He loved what Fredric March did in The Royal Family Of Broadway as Tony Cavendish which was based on him. But now it was real and no satire.

The Great Profile is funny, but if Menjou had done it the experience would not feel like a guilty pleasure.