Man of the Century

I saw a movie called “Man of the Century” that is about a 1920’s news reporter that gets transported to now. It is not a time travel movie like “Time Changer” where a preacher from the 1890’s time travels to now and is shocked by our harsh language, but it has the same fish out of water feel.

Johnny Twenties as he is called uses a lot of 20’s slang and dresses very ‘Jazz Era’. He not only looks the part, but he uses an old manual typewriter instead of a computer to write his news stories.

The move is more a comedy than anything else, but there is a touch of sadness as you see how people were happier in that long ago time of yesteryear. One thing that I’ve gotten from talking to people that are old, I’m talking about people who are over 100, is the sense that the twenties were a very happy time, versus the thirties with the great depression were very sad. Also, the 1940's with WWII were sad. Food was rationed in the 40's and so was gasoline.

The twenties with the jazz music were seen as a fun time when people became aware of many new technologies such as record players and radio. In contrast the thirties with the blues were seen as a sad time.

Unlike most Hollywood pictures, this movie contrasts the morality of the twenties with that of today’s world. The reporter Johnny Twenties does not use any bad language, and keeps saying expressions that were common in the Twenties such as ‘banana oil’ and ‘applesauce’ instead of using the “F” word.

To keep that 20's feel most of the movie was shot in black and white. I think the only thing missing from the movie was a Model A. Ford going “Aaahoooogah!”

It would be difficult to predict how a person from the 1920’s would react in today’s world.