It Happened One Night, Top Romantic Comedy
Its funny, AND romantic!
It Happened One Night is one of the finest romantic comedies in Hollywood history, and its popularity has not waned. Its surprising success lifted Columbia Studios into the big league and it is considered one of the pioneering "screwball" romantic comedies of its time, setting the pattern for many years afterwards.
A near perfect blend of script, direction, and performance, it was the first movie to win all five of its nominated Academy Awards categories: Best Picture, Best Actor (Clark Gable), Best Actress (Claudette Colbert), Best Director (Frank Capra), and Best Adaptation (Robert Riskin), (unrivalled until 1975, forty-one years later by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) - and then again by The Silence of the Lambs (1991).) It is number eight on the American Film Institute's (AFI) Funniest Films list.
Classy Hollywood Stars on Hub Pages
- Elizabeth Taylor, Marriages and Movies
A Hollywood legend, Elizabeth Taylor is also one of the world's most famous women--remembered for her eight marriages, her acting skills, many illnesses and flamboyant lifestyle. She is also one of the few who can justly be called Hollywood "royalty. - Errol Flynn, A Hollywood Death
Errol Flynn, with his exceptional looks and athleticism, had become by the early 40's, nothing short of a Hollywood God. But then he began to unravel. He experienced failure, illness and far too early at the age of 50, Flynn drank himself to death. - Bette Davis, Hollywood First Lady
With a career spanning six decades, few in the history of film rival her longevity and appeal. She received 10 Oscar nominations, and in 1977, she was the first woman to be honored with the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award - James Cagney, More Than A Gangster
One of Hollywood's most famous male stars and the cinema's quintessential "tough guy." Cagney was also an accomplished song and dance man and easily played light comedy. In 1999, the AFI ranked him at No. 8. among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time.
Basic Story Line
Even today, it's remarkable how fresh and funny "It Happened One Night" seems. The theme of the film is escapism and it tells the story of the unlikely romantic pairing of a mis-matched couple, Peter (Clark Gable), a tough-talking, recently-fired journalist, and Ellie (Claudette Colbert) who is a snobbish, superior-acting heiress on the run from home and her father. The two meet while on the road and are forced, initially reluctantly, to collaborate.
He's the salt of the earth, she's a rich kid, and each exploits the other - for him, she means a big newspaper story, for her, he's a way to help her get to New York and her forbidden fiancé. It is a modern tale with light-hearted sex appeal in which courtship and love triumph over class conflicts, social differences, and verbal disagreements.
The film is one of the first 'road movies', comprising mainly of a road trip (by bus, car, foot, and by thumb) by the apparently mis-matched couple. It contains some classic comedy scenes: the "Walls of Jericho" scene in an auto-camp bungalow whereby they can sleep in the same room although unmarried, the doughnuts-dunking lesson, the hitchhiking scene, the night-time scene on a haystack in a deserted barn, and the dramatic wedding scene.
The touch of Frank Capra can be seen everywhere; he was a master at using the familiar - eating, verbal slang, snoring, washing, dressing - to produce cinematic magic.
More Golden Age Movies
- Some Like It Hot, Hollywood Comic Perfection
Some Like It Hot is an exceptionally funny film comedy, a classic that has been voted the best comedy film of all time and is one of most successful comedies ever. Three major stars, Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon at their very best. - City Lights, Charlie Chaplin Shines Bright
City Lights is generally regarded as Chaplin's greatest film and represents the peak of his achievement and reputation. It offers a combination of pathos, slapstick and comedy and shows Chaplin's comic, acting and artistic genius at its finest. - 42nd Street, Musical Genius
A behind the scenes musical story of life on Broadway. It was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar and features Busby Berkeley's fantastic choreography and production design. It is fast moving, refreshing and a sheer joy to watch.
Cast List
Clark Gable - Peter Warne
Clark Gable became one of the first Hollywood legends, known as the King of Hollywood. He was born in 1901. At 16 he quit high school, went to work in a tire factory and decided to become an actor after a visit to the theatre. He toured in stock companies, worked oil fields and sold ties. In 1924 he reached Hollywood with the help of theatre manager Josephine Dillon, who coached and later married him (she was 17 years his senior). He was prompted to take arguably his most famous role of Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind by Carole Lombard whom he married in 1939, but in 1942, having completed filming a movie, Lombard was killed in a plane crash. A grief-stricken Gable joined the US Army Air Force and was off the screen for three years, flying combat missions in Europe.
Hollywood's Golden Age.com
- Claudette Colbert
A biography and filmography of Claudette Colbert, the beautiful star of 'It Happened One Night', and one of the most popular and talented actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age. - It Happened One Night
It Happened One Night is one of the finest romantic comedies in Hollywood's Golden Age and shows Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert at their very best.
Claudette Colbert - Ellie Andrews
Claudette Colbert was born Lily Claudette Chauchoin in 1903 in Paris, France. Her banker father moved the family to New York, USA when she was three. She made her Broadway debut in 1923 and changed her name the same year. Her first big success came in 1932 in The Sign Of The Cross.
She showed her fine comic timing in many films and by 1938 was the highest paid actress in Hollywood. She received a Life Achievement Award from the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in 1989 and announced her formal retirement in 1992. During her later years Colbert divided her time between New York and Barbados. She passed away in Barbados in 1996 after a series of strokes. She was married twice and had no children.
Walter Connolly - Alexander Andrews
Roscoe Karns - Oscar Shapeley, an annoying bus passenger
Jameson Thomas - "King" Westley
Alan Hale - Danker Arthur
Hoyt Zeke - Blanche Friderici, Zeke's wife
Charles C. Wilson - Joe Gordon
A Romantic Masterpiece
The humour is constant. The couple find themselves in increasingly ironic situations as they, initially reluctantly, break the conventions of their time. The film is pure Depression-era escapism, showing audiences that couples can fall for each other over dunking donuts and that love will always win out over class difference and financial inequality.
Hollywood has come out with many romantic comedies, some excellent, but It Happened One Night is still the standard other fims strive to reach. For once a classic film's reputation is richly deserved.
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