From its first run at New York City's Music Box in 1930, Once in a Lifetime has been popular with both audiences and critics alike. Of its opening night performance, J. Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times wrote "It is all swift shrieking and lethal. It is merciless and fairly comprehensive. If the fun lags a little during the middle sketches, it is only because the first act is so hilariously compact and because the best scenes all the way through are so outrageously fantastico."

Many critics of this first run had similarly minor problems with the play, couched always in the most positive terms. The unnamed critic in Commonweal took issue with the pacing of Hart and Kaufman's play, but ultimately found the production humorous. "The movies are delicious satirical meat, which the authors have served up most humorously even if the meal drags a...