Capra began his film career as a comedy writer for Mack Sennett silent films and moved to directing films in the late 1920s including LADIES OF LEISURE (1930) with a then unknown Barbara Stanwyck. Capra's first big hit was IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934), the prototype for the romantic comedy that has been used over and over again to this day. The fact that IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT would be as successful as it was is a testament to Capra's immigrant grit and optimism. Neither stars Clark Gable nor Claudette Colbert wanted to be in the comedy. IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT was under the banner of Columbia Picture, at the time considered a poverty row studio headed by Harry Cohn. To the amazement of everyone involved, IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT would go on to win the 5 major Academy Awards in 1934: Best Picture, Best Actor (Gable), Best Actress (Colbert), Best Adapted Screenplay (Robert Riskin), and Best Director (Frank Capra). Only Milos Foreman's ONE FLEW OVER THE CUKOO'S NEST (1975) and Jonathan Demme's THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991) have repeated this incredible feat.
With an adapted screenplay by Robert Riskin (MR. DEEDS COMES TO TOWN) based on a short story called Night Bus by Samuel Hopkins Adams and directed by Frank Capra, IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT begins with a splash (literally). Banished to her tycoon father Alexander Andrews (Walter Connolly) yacht in Florida after secretly marrying the fortune seeking weasel King Westley (Jameson Thomas) without her father's blessing, spoiled daughter and heiress Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) jumps ship, swimming to land and avoiding her father's men. Ellie turns up at the bus station and buys (with the help of a nice little old lady) a one-way ticket from Miami to New York. At the back of the bus, Ellie sits next to newspaper reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable) who has just been fired by his editor Joe Gordon (Charles C. Wilson). At their first rest stop, Ellie's suitcase is stolen. Peter chases after the thief (Ernie Adams) who eludes him. Ellie doesn't want to report the theft. Peter begins to wonder who this nicely dressed woman is and what has she done.
At the next stop, Ellie naively asks Bus Driver #1 (a young Ward Bond) to wait for her while she runs an errand. Upon her return, she discovers the bus has left but Peter is waiting for her. Peter knows her real identity. Ellie's story is all over the front pages of every newspaper including the one Peter holds. Peter has a scoop in his hands. He sends a telegram (charges reversed) to his editor Joe that he has a hot story. Ellie and Peter catch another bus to New York. Ellie finds herself next to the annoying Oscar Shapeley (Roscoe Karns) who hits on the attractive traveler. Peter steps in and pretends to be Ellie's husband. Oscar backs off. A bridge is washed out along the bus route. Peter secures a room for Ellie and himself at a motel. It has two beds. Peter puts up a blanket between them, calling it the "Walls of Jericho" (a wonderful sexual innuendo that pays off at the end). Peter offers Ellie a deal. He wants the inside story on King Westley or he threatens to turn Ellie in to her father.
So begins the original opposites attract tale of a coddled socialite and a hard nosed reporter that we love in romantic comedies like IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT. Peter loans Ellie his pajamas for the night. He begins to undress in front of Ellie before she realizes what he's doing and retreats to her side of the room. When she wakes up the next morning, Peter has had her dress pressed and made breakfast for her. Ellie begins to let down her guard for the irascible Peter. Two detectives show up, snooping around for Ellie. Peter and Ellie pretend to bicker like a married couple inside their room, driving the detectives away. Back on the bus, Oscar sees the headline about Ellie and her father's reward to find her. Oscar tries to squeeze Peter into sharing the reward with him. Peter scares Oscar away with a fake kidnapping plot. A party blossoms on the bus with music and dancing causing the bus to crash into a swamp. After sleeping in a farmer's barn for the night, Peter and Ellie hit the road and try hitchhiking. Peter has no luck with his thumb. Ellie gives it a try and (famously) flashes her bare leg. The next car driven by a jolly man named Danker (Alan Hale) immediately screeches to a halt.
Danker drives them closer to New York. When they make a stop, Danker tries to drive away with their luggage. Peter chases Danker down and takes his car after a fight. Mr. Andrews flies to New York and makes a deal with King. He won't interfere with his daughter's marriage. He just wants a proper real wedding. Ellie's not in a hurry to get to New York. She and Peter stay at another motel outside Philadelphia. Ellie breaks down and professes her love to Peter. While she sleeps, Peter races to New York and borrows some money from Joe so he can marry Ellie. The motel owners burst into Ellie's room and kick her out, believing Peter has left without paying. Ellie thinks Peter has ditched her. She calls her father who arrives with King in a police escort to take her home. Peter returns and sees the motorcade pass him with Ellie. He turns around but can't catch them. Mr. Andrews and Ellie have a frank conversation. Ellie admits she's in love with another man named Peter. Mr. Andrews has a letter from Peter about the reward. Ellie's heartbroken. She thinks Peter just wanted the reward. When Peter meets with Mr. Andrews before the wedding, he just wants reimbursement for the gas and motels. He doesn't want the reward. Peter confesses to Mr. Andrews he loves her daughter. Will Mr. Andrews share this admission to Ellie before she's at the altar with King? Will Peter and Ellie knock down the "Walls of Jericho?"
The birth of the classic romantic comedy may have begun with IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT. Today's movie fans will recognize two protagonists (one male; one female) who have nothing in common that meet by chance and initially, can't stand each other. Ellie is the spoiled rich girl who's never been out in the real world. Peter's the blue collar, hard drinking reporter with integrity. Unlike screwball comedies like Howard Hawks BRINGING UP BABY (1933), IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT focuses on plot instead of rapid fire dialogue (although Riskin's dialogue is priceless). IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT does deal with class (elite vs blue collar) that audiences loved. It turns into a road movie as Ellie and Peter move from bus to hitchhiking to automobile as they begin to fall in love with each other. What makes IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT a cut above other romantic comedies later in the 30s is it was made Pre-Code. It's sexy and daring and provocative. The strict Hayes Code had not put the clamps on cinematic sexual foreplay yet.
Claudette Colbert showing her bare leg and thigh to catch a passing car's attention and hitch a ride became IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT'S most iconic image and famous few frames of film. By today's standards, it's tame. But in 1934, Colbert using her sexuality to acquire transportation after Gable's thumb failed is a powerful tool that censors would soon put a stop to. Another risque scene involves Lombard and Gable sharing a motel room (albeit separate beds). Gable undresses in front of Colbert, showing her his preference of which items of clothing come off first. Colbert retreats to her side of the room in horror which leads to Gable's idea of hanging a blanket between their beds. "Prying eyes annoy me. Behold the Walls of Jericho. Maybe not as thick as the ones Joshua blew down with his trumpet but a lot safer." "The Walls of Jericho" is a biblical reference to a battle where the Israelites encircled the town of Jericho for six days before the walls fell down on the seventh day. Gable will have to encircle Colbert's heart until her desires cave in.
In IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, "the Walls of Jericho" represent a sexual innuendo that director Capra gets away with Pre-Code. Ellie and Peter can't have intercourse until either her marriage is annulled and/or Ellie and Peter get married. Peter's hanging of the blanket aka "the Walls of Jericho" prevent them for the time from jumping into each other's pants. The "Walls of Jericho" will payoff in the film's final reel. Ellie leaves King at the altar after learning Peter does love her, jumping into a waiting car her father has left for her. Mr. Andrews reads a telegram from Peter after he and Ellie are married. They're honeymooning in a motel somewhere in Michigan. "The Walls of Jericho are toppling," Peter tells Mr. Andrews in the telegram. We never see them but the motel lights are on. The husband and wife owners giggle like school kids at what's going on in that room. The motel owner tells his wife the honeymooners requested a toy trumpet. The lights turn off and we hear the bugle briefly blare. The final shot is the blanket falling to the floor. It's a clever metaphor signifying our lovers have knocked down the barrier between them and can finally have sex.
As I watched IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, I realized that the film is the blueprint for two of my favorite romantic comedies that I had seen way before I ever watched Capra's gem. Both William Wyler's ROMAN HOLIDAY (1953) and Robert Zemeckis's ROMANCING THE STONE (1984) owe their romantic couples and situations to IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT. ROMAN HOLIDAY gives us another reporter, this time down on his luck international correspondent Gregory Peck who accidentally stumbles across the exclusive of a lifetime when he comes across AWOL princess Audrey Hepburn who has snook away from her royal handlers while visiting Rome. Peck and Hepburn will briefly fall in love but realize that a commoner and a royal can never live happily ever after. ROMANCING THE STONE introduces two completely opposite characters: a meek romance novelist (Kathleen Turner) and an extroverted fortune hunter (Michael Douglas) looking for her kidnapped sister. They have nothing in common and don't get along which can only mean they will fall in love with each other. Sounds like Colbert's Ellie Andrews and Gable's Peter Warne in IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT doesn't it?
For someone who didn't want to be in IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, Clark Gable owns the movie, making struggling newspaper reporter Peter Warne one of his most engaging characters. Gable as Warne goes from defiantly drunk and despondent after he's fired by his editor to a chivalrous knight protecting the story of a lifetime when a stroke of luck has him sitting next to runaway heiress Ellie Andrews on a Greyhound bus. At first, Peter sees Ellie as his meal ticket back to legitimacy as a reporter. Peter will evolve as he falls for the spunky daughter of a millionaire who's never really been out in the real world with regular people. A leading man for his entire career, the 1930s were Gable's golden decade with IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT his first hit. Gable would follow up with bigger films like William Wellman's CALL OF THE WILD (1935), Frank Lloyd's MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1935), and W.S. Van Dyke's SAN FRANCISCO (1936). Gable's rise from leading man to movie star would culminate in his most famous role as rogue Rhett Butler and his tumultuous relationship with southern belle Scarlett O'Hara (Vivian Leigh) during and after the Civil War in Victor Fleming's GONE WITH THE WIND (1939).
Like Gable, Claudette Colbert also did not want to be in IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT and was so sure it was a bomb, she didn't even attend the Academy Awards where she won for Best Actress (apparently when she heard she had won, she rushed to the ceremony). What I find interesting about Colbert's Ellie Andrews is she doesn't really act spoiled. Ellie's just naive. She's lived a sheltered life, under the thumb of father Alexander who's bought her everything she wanted. In later romantic comedies with wealthy female protagonists, they're often more annoying and snootier to begin with before softening up to their blue collar love interest (like Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell in OVERBOARD). Colbert seduces with her big round eyes and nonchalant sexuality. IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT was Colbert's first big hit. Other Colbert films to check out include Cecil B. DeMille's CLEOPATRA (1934), Ernst Lubitsch's BLUEBEARD'S EIGHTH WIFE (1938), and Preston Sturges THE PALM BEACH STORY (1942), a classic screwball comedy co-starring Joel McCrea.
After watching the first third of IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, you would think wealthy Alexander Andrews played by Walter Connolly was the villain of the film. He keeps his daughter Ellie captive on his yacht for defying him, secretly marrying scoundrel King Westley against his wishes. He has detectives scouring the East Coast searching for her when she escapes from her water bound prison. By the end of the film, Mr. Andrews is playing matchmaker, passing on separately to both Ellie and Peter that each one is completely in love with the other. Andrews saves the day before our lovers make a terrible mistake. The portly Walter Connolly had a relatively short career (he passed away in 1940) but stood out playing wealthy characters like Andrews. Connolly's filmography includes screwball comedies like Howard Hawks TWENTIETH CENTURY (1934) with John Barrymore and Carole Lombard and William Wellman's NOTHING SACRED (1937) with Lombard and Fredric March.
Two of the most recognizable supporting character actors of the Golden Age have small but memorable roles in IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT. John Ford favorite Ward Bond plays the no nonsense Bus Driver #1 who strands Ellie at a bus stop when he won't wait for her to run an errand. Bond would work with Capra again 12 years later in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE in a memorable role as George Bailey's buddy Bert the Cop. Alan Hale has an unusual role in his long character actor career as the singing driver Danker who picks up hitchhikers Ellie and Peter on the road and later tries to drive off with their suitcases. Hale usually played good guys, often in numerous Michael Curtiz films including THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1938), THE SEA HAWK (1940), and VIRGINIA CITY (1940). And a special shout out to Bess Flowers who plays Joe the Editor's long suffering but strong assistant Agnes. Agnes belongs in a screwball comedy with her deadpan face as Joe berates her for accepting Peter's collect calls and reverse telegram charges, never showing any emotion. She knows Joe will never fire her even though he threatens to. According to IMDB, Flowers was known as "Queen of the Hollywood Extras" appearing in over 800 films (usually as an extra) including 25 Best Picture Nominees.
Maybe because I haven't seen many of their movies, I get Claudette Colbert and Carole Lombard mixed up. Both were fine comedic actresses, at the top of their game in the 1930s and 40s. Both were beautiful women but they don't look very much alike. Lombard was a blonde; Colbert had dark curly hair. It's their first names caused the confusion. Claudette and Carole. Ironically, Clark Gable was married to Carole Lombard from 1939 until 1942 when Lombard tragically died in a plane crash in Nevada.
Sadly, Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable only made one other film together Jack Conway's BOOM TOWN (1940) co-starring Spencer Tracy and Hedy LaMarr. Their chemistry is what makes IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT a hit. By contrast, Colbert would make seven films with Fred MacMurray; Gable would make six films with Jean Harlow. IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT is Frank Capra's love letter to the romantic comedy with one of the most irresistible screen couples in film history in Colbert and Gable, planting the seed for future filmmakers to bring together two different characters with nothing in common who will take a journey and fall in love in the process.
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