It Happened One Night
(1934)
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Frank Capra's seminal screwball comedy, which won all five major Academy Awards for 1934, is still as breezy and beguiling today. Claudette Colbert plays Ellie Andrews, a spoiled heiress who has married fortune-hunting aviator King Westley (Jameson Thomas), despite her father (Walter Connolly)'s objections. To keep Ellie from marrying this lothario, her father has been holding her prisoner aboard his yacht. But Ellie bolts from the yacht, swims ashore in her clothes, and eventually slips onto a Greyhound bus bound for New York. Aboard the bus is newspaper reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable), who has recently been fired for drinking on the job. Peter gets the last seat on the bus -- but when he gets up to argue with the bus driver, Ellie takes his seat. Since it is the last seat on the bus, they have to share it. When Ellie has her purse stolen and she refuses to report it, Peter begins to suspect something. The next morning, they both miss the bus after a leisurely breakfast, and Peter reveals that he knows her identity. She makes a deal with him: if he helps her get to New York, he can write a scoop about her for his paper. Peter thinks she is a spoiled brat, however, and refuses a monetary bribe: I'm not interested in your money or your problem. You, King Westley, your father -- you're all a lot of hooey to me! But as they travel northward and engage in a series of misadventures, the gruff newspaperman and the spoiled rich girl, thrown together by circumstances, fall in love with each other. This movie set the pace for the screwball comedy, the witty and romantic clash of temperaments between a man and a woman mismatched in both personality and social position, a type of movie often associated with Katherine Hepburn in such classics as Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), and, with Spencer Tracy, Adam's Rib (1949), Pat and Mike (1952), and Desk Set (1957), among others. The only other movies to win all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, and Screenplay) were One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991).~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide |
This started out as a minor film called “Night Bus” and then MGM decided to punish its errant star Clark Gable by sending him over to Columbia to play the reporter. And what happened? As classy and charming a romantic comedy as you're ever likely to see, winning Oscars in all key departments — best film, director, stars, screenplay (only One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Silence of the Lambs have matched that achievement) — thanks to whizzkid director Frank Capra and a marvellous foil to Gable in leading lady Claudette Colbert. The scene where runaway heiress Colbert hitches a lift and the infamous “Walls of Jericho” bedroom sequence have great charm, and confirm this standout movie's claim to classic status. Incidentally, Gable changed American fashion overnight in the bit where he strips off his shirt and reveals that he's not wearing a vest!
Halliwell's Film Guide
Highly successful and influential romantic comedy, the first to use buses and motels as background and still come up sparkling. Its success began the genre of screwball comedies that enlivened the 1930s and 40s.