It Happened One Night
It Happened One Night
Arguably, the best romantic comedies come from the early days of Hollywood. Sometimes sub-categorized as screwball comedies, they frequently featured two upstanding stars waging a no holds barred battle of the sexes with quick back and forth banter amidst wacky shenanigans and statistically unlikely misunderstandings. Though the black and white cinematography and lingo of the era keeps most of the modern day audience away, many of these films are landmarks of studio film making and endlessly dissectible. Credited as the first screwball comedy, It Happened One Night is, for my money, the best romantic comedy ever made.
Millionaire heiress Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) is tired of her domineering father (Walter Connolly) controlling her life. Very much against his wishes, she elopes with the boring King Westley (Jameson Thomas) before being brought back to face her dad. Determined to return to her groom, she jumps off her father’s yacht and begins a journey from Miami to New York to be with her love again. With her father’s detectives snooping everywhere, she must rely on street-wise newspaperman Peter Warne (Clark Gable) to get her back to Westley. In exchange, he gets the exclusive to the story, a shot in the arm he desperately needs to revive his broken career. Of course, along the winding road these two mismatched rebels begin to develop feelings for one another, but will they actually embrace their love?
It Happened One Night, like so many other fantastic films, had the deck stacked against it. In 1934, Columbia Pictures was poverty row for Hollywood, and Robert Riskin’s script was looked down upon as “just another bus picture.” Frank Capra was still a bit of a director for hire, and the two leads were none too thrilled to be loaned out from their respective studios to make the film. Gable was essentially being punished by MGM, and Colbert only agreed to sign on when she was promised shooting would conclude in four weeks and that her salary would be doubled. The stories behind the production are almost depressing, considered the magnificently wonderful product that was delivered. Gable reportedly walked on set the first day sulking “let’s get this over with”, and Colbert told a friend upon finishing the shoot “I just finished making the worst picture I’ve ever made.” It’s wonderful how time can prove skeptics wrong.
You’d never believe from just watching the movie that all those involved had anything less than the best time of their lives filming it. Of course, the film soars gloriously upon the chemistry between Colbert and Gable, who give us one of Hollywood’s most hilarious and respectful romances. Social norms have changed quite a bit, so modern day viewers will most likely vehemently boo at the light slap Ellie endures at the hand of her father for her defiance, but I’ve yet to see the playful spank she earns later hoisted over Gable’s shoulder fail to get a laugh. This is thanks to the immaculate pacing of their relationship, from aggravated opposites who despise each other’s way of life to love struck puppy dogs.
We start with Ellie, who doesn’t consider herself spoiled since every tiny aspect of her life is dictated by her father. This helps us sympathize with her when plates upon plates of steak are brought to her while the Depression eats the Dust Bowl alive. She’s strong and independent, and smart enough to know that nobody will be looking for her at a bus station. Although she is easily victimized by thieves and naively assumes that the schedule will start and stop at her whim, she’s not helpless. Peter fills in the role not of her white night, but of a mentor of sorts who begins to love his pupil for who she is. Her spunk and determination are assets as valuable as his down to earth sensibilities and hometown know how. As obstacles pop up along the road and the duo are forced to alter transportation multiple times, you can see Ellie is having the time of her life. Her adorable smile and willingness to sit back every once and a while and watch Peter make a fool of himself makes her one of the greatest ladies ever portrayed in a love story.
Of course Gable commands your attention and affection right from his introduction, drunkenly telling off his boss from a phone booth hundreds of miles away while a court of inebriated admirers cheer him on. His daily lessons to Ellie on the proper form for donut-dunking and his demonstration of the multiple approaches to hitchhiking perfected the “Seinfeld” formula decades before this sentence made any sense. Though he’s trying to teach Ellie how to come down to earth, he’s got a lot to learn himself. It’s easy to see why Ellie falls in line at his command, he’s just so charismatic (albeit slightly egotistical), and the fact that he won’t put up with her stuffiness only makes his approval and love that much more desirable. But he’s not chauvinistic; he sees in Ellie the ideal mate, a woman who won’t back down from his bossiness, but listens intently and decides which parts of the lecture are valuable and which are absolute hooey. They’re a pair of rebels who complement each other in all the perfect ways.
Ellie and Peter’s story is never boring to follow, thanks in part to the wonderful supporting cast around them. Walter Connolly’s arc as Ellie’s father is hilariously heartfelt. He doesn’t start as a bad guy, just overbearing. But his concern and love for his daughter is brought out thanks to her rebellion, and the final moments her shares with Ellie and Peter separately are some of Hollywood’s greatest ruminations on the insanity of love. Roscoe Karns turns in another terrific performance as aggravating fellow bus rider Shapely, who has a tough time shutting up until Peter gives him the slip thanks to one of the funniest and most clever cover stories ever conceived. Filling in the sidelines are Thomas portraying the boorish sucker Westley and Charles C. Wilson as Peter’s editor/nemesis, who is constantly being taken for a ride by the reporter. It’s a terrific cast through and through, even the extras on the bus and flooding into the auto camps leave an impression.
Though the movie is one of the all-time great comedies, Capra weaves our duo’s journey through the difficult landscape of the Great Depression. Most memorable is a mother on the bus who faints from extreme hunger, and her son who sobs their plight to Peter as Ellie selflessly gives away the last of their budget. It’s a moment that puts the setting into perspective, but the movie never beats us over the head with the dreariness and trouble of the era. Another fantastic moment lingers on the passengers as they all join in on a sing-along rendition of “The Flying Trapeze”. Movies don’t have moments like that anymore, but it creates a mood and expresses ideas about optimism and perseverance better than any slickly written dialogue ever could. Nostalgia is a force that guides our emotions throughout the film, but in a way that isn’t shameless and exploitative.
Like Casablanca, It Happened One Night is a film I love showing to people who don’t have much of a taste for classic black and white films. I have yet to screen it to anybody who didn’t end up really liking it. The banter is genius, the goofiness is fun, and the romance is palpable. Its influence has trickled down through the ages to inform hundreds of romantic comedies, but the original has yet to be bested. Though the highlight scenes are undoubtedly Peter’s hitchhiking demonstration (and Ellie’s wonderful response), the Walls of Jericho scene, and the improvised marital squabble charade that throws a pair of detectives off the duo’s trail, It Happened One Night is a movie that has no bad or boring scenes. Each interaction is a delight to watch, and the formula that has become all too familiar in the years since has new life in this, one of its first iterations. Some complain that the film lacks the “chase to the airport” scene at the end when Ellie escapes her own wedding and reunites with Peter, but I respect Capra’s decision to skip over the mushy reunion. We already know how deeply they love and complete each other, so what else could they possibly say if such a scene existed in the film?
There are so many bad romantic comedies, movies that don’t understand human beings in the slightest. For all its quick talking 1930’s jargon and dated landscape, It Happened One Night is a movie about two people who fall in love, real love, and who express it by uproariously teasing one another because, hey, they can’t just kiss each other all the time. In fact, Peter and Ellie’s lips never meet on screen, but that doesn’t mean that the romantic tension is any less tangible. With its subtle sidesteps around the Hayes Production Code, it actually manages to be much sexier than most of today’s movies about friends with benefits. It’s hilarious and heartwarming, and I’m not just saying that because it’s old and I have to. It’s a ride that you’ll genuinely want to tag along on again and again.
