It Happened One Night (1934) Director: Frank Capra
“Two great lovers of the screen in the grandest of romantic comedies!”
★★★★☆
It Happened One Night is a terrific little nostalgia movie, an entertaining and quirky romp filled with both comedy and romance. It is a light-hearted, whimsical film –though in many ways it was also a scandalous film for its coy, overt sexual themes. This was a feat which could only have been accomplished prior to the rise of the Hays Code. It Happened One Night was a sleeper hit that effectively swept the Academy Awards and was even rumored to have brought about the demise of undershirt sales in the U.S. after Clark Gable’s bare chest was featured prominently in the movie. In It Happened One Night, Frank Capra’s sunny optimism joins with screenwriter Robert Riskin to create a simple fantasy about the possibilities of romance in America along the open road.
A wealthy heiress, Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert), tries to elope with a pilot, despite her father’s misgivings. She runs away and travels on a bus to New York where she meets Pete Warne (Clark Gable), a fired newspaper writer. Together they go on a many adventures, as Pete vows to help her arrive in New York. They stay in hotel rooms, where Pete respects their separate sleeping areas by constructing a “wall,” or a blanket that delineates their bedrooms. In addition, they hitch-hike, along with other hijinks. One of the most famous scenes in the film occurs when Pete tries to hail a car, but fails. They only succeed when Ellie lifts her dress to reveal her leg. Instantly a car stops to pick them up. Eventually Pete and Ellie fall in love, Pete gets his old job back, and he narrowly misses Ellie on the road until she runs away at the altar with her pilot fiancee. Peter and Ellie are reunited at the end with the approval of her father.
Directed by the great Frank Capra, It Happened One Night was not an initial success. But after a second release, it gained traction among small towns and local cinemas for the appeal of its simple romance story. Eventually it became a box office smash success (easily Columbia’s most successful film to date). Ironically, in 1935 after being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, Colbert decided not to attend the ceremony in order to take a cross-country road trip. When it was announced that she won the award, a studio executive asked someone to escort her off the train so she could arrive in time for the ceremony, as the train had not yet left the station. The film won all five Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Writing -an extraordinary feat for such a simple little picture!
Peter: “Why didn’t you take off all your clothes? You could have stopped forty cars.”
Ellie: “I’ll remember that when we need forty cars.”
Ellie: “You’ve been telling me what not to do ever since I can remember.”
Mr. Andrews (her father): “That’s because you’ve always been a stubborn idiot.”
Ellie: “I come from a long line of stubborn idiots.”
Credits:
- Directed by: Frank Capra
- Screenplay by: Robert Riskin
- Based on: “Night Bus,” a 1933 story in Cosmopolitan by Samuel Hopkins Adams
- Produced by: Frank Capra, Harry Cohn
- Starring:
- Clark Gable…..Peter Warne
- Claudette Colbert…..Ellen “Ellie” Andrews
- Cinematography: Joseph Walker
- Edited by: Gene Havlick
- Music by: Howard Jackson, Louis Silvers
- Distributed by: Columbia Pictures
7th Academy Awards (1934)
Hosted by Irvin S. Cobb, a humorist and columnist for The New York World, the 7th Academy Awards ceremony was held at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, CA. This was the year of a rare Oscar “sweep” by Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night. Also of note, six-year-old Shirley Temple received the first Juvenile Award from the Academy, making her the youngest Oscar recipient in history.
- Best Picture: It Happened One Night
- The Barretts of Wimpole Street
- Cleopatra
- Flirtation Walk
- The Gay Divorcee
- Here Comes the Navy
- The House of Rothschild
- Imitation of Life
- One Night of Love
- The Thin Man
- Viva Villa!
- The White Parade
- Best Director: Frank Capra – It Happened One Night
- Victor Schertzinger – One Night of Love
- W. S. Van Dyke – The Thin Man
- Best Actor: Clark Gable – It Happened One Night as Peter Warne
- Frank Morgan – The Affairs of Cellini as Alessandro, Duke of Florence
- William Powell – The Thin Man as Nick Charles
- Best Actress: Claudette Colbert – It Happened One Night as Ellen “Ellie” Andrews
- Bette Davis – Of Human Bondage (write-in, not official nomination) as Mildred Rogers
- Grace Moore – One Night of Love as Mary Barrett
- Norma Shearer – The Barretts of Wimpole Street as Elizabeth Barrett
- Best Original Story: Manhattan Melodrama – Arthur Caesar
- Hide-Out – Mauri Grashin
- The Richest Girl in the World – Norman Krasna
- Best Adaptation: It Happened One Night – Robert Riskin, based on the story “Night Bus” by Samuel Hopkins Adams (the categories Best Original Story and Best Adaptation were later joined together as one single award, Best Screenplay)
- The Thin Man – Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, based on the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett
- Viva Villa! – Ben Hecht, based on the novel by Edgecumb Pinchon and O. B. Stade
Did the right film win Best Picture?
A foundational romantic comedy, it’s hard to argue against the Academy’s selection of It Happened One Night, especially with it featuring the iconic Hollywood duo of Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable. However if it were up to me, I likely would have selected Josef von Sternberg’s The Scarlet Empress (1934) starring Marlene Dietrich for Best Picture instead, being such a fond admirer of the astounding and entrancing Dietrich-von Sternberg collaborations.
Click here to return to my survey of the Best Picture Winners.