"It Happened One Night" was a great commercial and critical success for Director Frank Capra. The romantic comedy was a box office hit, and took the four most important Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Clark Gable), and Best Actress (Claudette Colbert), as well as for adapted screenplay (Robert Riskin). The film continues to be very highly regarded today.
The story has Colbert just married to famed aviator King Westley (Jameson Thomas) whom her father (Walter Connolly) despises. Connolly interferes with their marriage, abducting her and seeking an annulment. Colbert escapes, and flees to New York and Westley on a bus, where she meets smug reporter Gable. Gable, in need of a big story in order to reconcile with his editor, makes a pact with Colbert to help her reach New York. Predictably, romantic sparks fly between Gable and Colbert.
"It Happened One Night" is a good film, certainly
better than the average comedy. The dialogue
between Gable and Colbert is often entertaining,
especially when he teaches her how to hitchhike.
Colbert is engaging and sympathetic, while Gable
is a capable comic actor. But the film has its
share of problems, which keep it from being the
outstanding film that it is generally considered
to be. The film begins with Colbert's father
holding her captive against her will on his boat.
I have always considered this to be kidnapping.
Ellie escapes, and her father sends a fleet of
detectives after her. What if they caught up with
her? Would she be dragged kicking and screaming
into a waiting limousine? Despite his tyranny,
Connolly is presented as a sympathetic character.
It is understandable why he dislikes Westley, but
why is he so anxious that Colbert marry Gable
instead, whom he has met just once, and when he
knows that the two have already quarreled?
Why is Colbert's trip to New York such a huge
story? The film features a half-dozen different
front page headlines, each in screaming type. The
highs and lows of the Colbert-Gable romance
coincide with the hate/love relationship between
Gable and his newspaper boss (Charles Wilson).
There is a song performed on the bus, "The Daring
Young in his Flying Trapeze." Everybody on the
bus loves the song, when assumedly half of the
passengers would be trying to get some sleep.
Various passengers, strangers to each other, take
turns standing up and singing different verses,
which they do flawlessly and with matching hand
gestures. The bus driver gets so excited by the
song that he drives off the road.
There were overall qualities about the film that
I also disagreed with. The film is essentially a
depression-era fantasy for women, with heroine
Colbert achieving independence from her
fabulously wealthy father while exchanging
uptight husband Westley for dashing Gable. While
similar themes has been put to good use, for
example, in "A Room with a View", here the
characters are more shallow and the audience
manipulations are more blatant. "It Happened One
Night" also falls prey to the Hollywood canard
that people fall in love with each other through
a series of arguments.
On the other hand, most viewers have found this
to be a better film than I have given it credit
for. It is definitely a crowd-pleasing romantic
comedy (65/100)
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