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| A newspaperman (Clark Gable) helps an heiress (Claudette Colbert) get from Florida to New York. |
Release Date: Feb. 22, 1934. Running Time: 105 minutes. Screenplay: Robert Riskin. Based on the story Night Bus, by Samuel Hopkins Adams. Producer: Frank Capra, Harry Cohn. Director: Frank Capra.
THE PLOT:
Heiress Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) runs away after her wealthy father (Walter Connolly) announces his intent to annul her marriage to a caddish pilot. She evades her father's detectives, sneaking aboard a bus bound from Florida to New York, where she plans to rendezvous with her new sort-of husband.
She is recognized by a fellow passenger: Peter Warne (Clark Gable), a journalist who has just lost his job. After Ellie's luggage is stolen, leaving her with just a few dollars to make it the rest of the way to her destination, Warne strikes a deal with her. He will get her safely to New York in exchange for her story.
But with her father getting her picture onto the front page of every newspaper, the journey will be far from easy. And the more time she spends with Peter, the more Ellie finds herself doubting that the elopement is what she really wants...
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| Peter rescues Ellie from the boorish Shapely (Roscoe Karns). |
CHARACTERS:
Peter Warne: Peter is intelligent and competent - but he is also a little too certain of his expertise in every situation. The movie gets a fair amount of comic mileage from this, as every time he gets too full of himself, something happens to make him look a little foolish. One example comes after he bluffs Shapely away by pretending to be a gangster. Impressed with himself, he gives a James Cagney-like tough guy spit - which promptly lands on his own suit. Clark Gable's rough-hewn screen presence does occasionally threaten to cross over into meanness, but the film softens him every time this happens - often by simply lingering on his face long enough for his expression to change.
Ellie Andrews: Almost certainly Claudette Colbert's most-remembered performance, with good reason. She has terrific chemistry with Gable, and she actively makes him appear charming just by reacting to his with a smile. Capra wisely focuses on her reactions throughout, and her expressiveness gives emotional weight to the proceedings. When she smiles or laughs, it lifts up the entire picture; when she is reduced to tears late in the film, trying to suppress them by covering her mouth, you can actively feel her heart breaking.
Alexander Andrews: One of the movie's clever conceits is that Ellie's father is much like Peter, despite the journalist's instinctive disdain for the rich. The opening scene sees Alexander trying to break down Ellie's resistance to the annulment by eating a steak in front of her - the very type of tactic Peter will later use in some of his interactions with her on the road. He dismisses Ellie's pseudo-husband as a "phony." Later, Peter will use the exact same word to describe the man.
Oscar Shapely: An annoying bus passenger who tries to pick up Ellie, he initially serves to make Peter look good by comparison. Peter is a fast talker, but he never behaves boorishly toward Ellie. Shapely patters toward lewd suggestion within a few minutes of speaking, and is heedless of Ellie's obvious lack of amusement or interest. Around the midpoint, he sees a newspaper and realizes who Ellie is, leading directly into a change in circumstances in the movie's second half.
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| Ellie's hitchhiking technique proves a little more effective than Peter's... |
THOUGHTS:
On paper, It Happened One Night shouldn't be a classic; it probably shouldn't even be a good movie. A modestly budgeted film, the script was rejected by multiple stars who found the characters unlikeable and the story paper-thin. Writer Robert Riskin churned out last-minute rewrites to try to address Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert's issues with the script - which still didn't satisfy Colbert, who reportedly complained after filming that she had "just finished the worst picture" of her career.
In short, this appears to be a textbook study in how not to make a movie. Yet somehow, everything came together just about perfectly, and the movie remains a delight today.
It Happened One Night is sometimes credited with creating the screwball comedy. It didn't, but its success certainly helped popularize the genre. Always a deft hand at moving his films along quickly, director Frank Capra sets up the two leads' dilemmas in the first ten minutes, then keeps the film zipping along from one set piece to the next.
Several of those set pieces are iconic in themselves: Peter erecting a clothesline and blanket to serve as "The Walls of Jericho" between their twin beds; Ellie showing Peter that, in hitchhiking, "the limb is mightier than the digit"; a bus singalong that probably should feel extended and indulgent, but instead ends up being absolutely charming. Just to name a few of many fine moments.
The script mixes good character interplay with some effective commentary on class difference. Early in the film, Ellie offers Peter a promise of money to not turn her in; he gets angry, growling at her for trying to buy him when all she really needed to do was ask for help. Some laughs are gained from Ellie's unfamiliarity with etiquette for public showers, or from her inability to stick to a basic budget for her long trip. She, in turn, calls Peter out for being "prejudiced" in his hostility toward the rich when he makes remarks about her father - a man who turns out to be very different from Peter's preconceptions.
Like any road movie, the joy is in the journey. The final third, when the plot must reassert itself, is unsurprisingly the movie's weakest part, not helped by being the one part of the film that separates the leads. Still, by this point, we are firmly invested in the two leads as a couple. That proves to be enough to carry the film to its close.
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| Ellie tends to Peter's wounds after he gets into a scrape. |
OVERALL:
It Happened One Night was the first motion picture to manage a clean sweep at the Academy Awards, winning for: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. It was a tremendous hit with critics and public alike, and it remains sparkling entertainment today.
A slight lag in the final Act keeps me from awarding this full marks - but I'd still rate this as an excellent comedy, one that stands the test of time better than most of its contemporaries.
Overall Rating: 9/10.
Outstanding Production - 1932/1933: Cavalcade
Outstanding Production - 1935: Mutiny on the Bounty
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