The Great Profile *** (1940, John Barrymore, Mary Beth Hughes, Gregory Ratoff, John Payne, Anne Baxter, Lionel Atwill, Edward Brophy) – Classic Movie Review 13,533

The 1940 comedy film The Great Profile stars hard-drinking John Barrymore, who gamely sends himself up as a drunken actor whose follies endanger the show he is in.

Director Walter Lang’s 1940 American black and white satirical comedy film The Great Profile stars hard-drinking star John Barrymore, famed for his Great Profile, indeed nicknamed The Great Profile, who gamely sends himself up as Evans Garrick, a drunken actor whose follies endanger the show he is in.

His leading lady Sylvia (Mary Beth Hughes) quits the show, and young woman Mary Maxwell (played by a young Anne Baxter) tries to reform him, then Sylvia returns to save it.

The self-parody verges on the creepy, but Barrymore is funny in director Walter Lang’s amiable 1940 farcical comedy, with an amusing screenplay by Milton Sperling and Hilary Lynn.

Barrymore read his lines from a blackboard but was word perfect, bringing in the film five days ahead of schedule and saving the 20th Century Fox studio an estimated $25,000.

The film was intended to star Adolphe Menjou, but was rejigged for Barrymore and Menjou was paid off.

The cast are John Barrymore, Mary Beth Hughes, Gregory Ratoff, John Payne, Anne Baxter, Lionel Atwill, Edward Brophy, Willie Fung, Charles Lane, William Pawley, James Flavin, Cecil Cunningham, Dorothy Dearing, Joan Valerie, Marc Lawrence, Hal K Dawson, Eddie Dunn, John Dilson, and John Elliott.

The Great Profile is directed by Walter Lang, runs 82 minutes, is made and released by 20th Century Fox, is written by Milton Sperling and Hilary Lynn, is shot in black and white by Darryl F Zanuck and Ernest Palmer, is produced by Raymond Griffith, and is scored by Cyril J Mockridge.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,533

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