It Happened One Night (1934)

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It Happened One Night (1934)

7/10

Starring
Clarke Gable
Claudette Colbert



Directed by Frank Capra

It Happened One Night is one of the only three movies since the commencement of the Academy Awards to have been able to win all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay), a feat that would not be matched until One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1975 and of cause latter on in 1991, Anthony Hopkins The Silence of the Lambs followed suit.

Here is a romantic comedy as raw as they come giving you a thrill as you watch two people miss matched from the start found a way to fall in love and tour America on their way to New York. The funny thing about the movie is the name which says, “It happened one night” when actually in the movie’s story it actually went on for more than a night.

The movie plot is about Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) who has been whisked away by her father in his yacht to keep her away from her new husband King Westley. Ellie then jumps ship, swim to shore and heads off to New York to meet with King Westley. On her way she meets a reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable) and both started as an unsuitable pair that grew to be lovers.

Both Colbert and Gable felt the movie was not going to be good enough and gave Capra a lot of bull. Even the movie’s iconic scene where Colbert lifted up her skirt to stop a car during the hitchhiking scene, was not so easy to film for Capra as Colbert refused to do the scene claiming it was not lady like, but upon seeing a body double do it, she later changed her mind and did it herself.

Although picking up slow, the movie later became one the biggest hits for the studio and the thing is that at the end the movie cleared the Academy Awards and both Gable and Colbert were better off. Colbert is known to have told a friend, "I just finished the worst picture in the world." She boycotted the Academy Awards when she got a nomination believing she will not win, but she was called back to come pick up her award.

Here is a movie that actually makes you smile all the way through, although like the actors themselves upon initial siting of the film you can be turned off thinking this is heading nowhere, but be patient the movie has all the familiar scenes that we see in the movies today (all taken from this old classic). This old classic is tagged the 46^th greatest film in the last 100 years in the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition).

It Happened One Night is a nice DVD for one to place on the shelf.