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'''It Happened One Night''' is a 1934 romantic comedy directed by Frank Capra, in which a pampered socialite (Claudette Colbert) tries to get out from under her father's thumb, and falls in love with a roguish reporter (Clark Gable). The plot was based on the story ''Night Bus'' by Samuel Hopkins Adams, which provided the shooting title. The final title is an oddity, as the movie takes place over several nights and none is particularly key to the plot.
The film was the first to win all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay), a feat that would not be matched until ''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' (1975) and later by ''The Silence of the Lambs'' (1991). The movie has also been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Contents

Plot

Casting

Cast

Production

Awards

Popular culture

References

External links

Plot

Spoiled heiress Ellie Andrews (Colbert) marries fortune-hunter 'King' Westley (Jameson Thomas) against the wishes of her extremely wealthy father (Walter Connolly). He retrieves his daughter before the marriage can be consummated, but then she runs away, leaping off the side of the family yacht.
She boards a bus, where she meets Peter Warne (Gable), an out-of-work newspaper reporter. He recognizes her and gives her a choice: if she will give him an exclusive on her story, he will help her reunite with King, otherwise he will tell her father where she is and collect the reward. She agrees.

Various adventures follow. One of the most famous happens when they have to hitchhike. Peter claims to be an expert on the subject, but nothing works and eventually, out of frustration, he ends up thumbing his nose at passing cars. The sheltered Ellie then shows him how it's done. She stops the next car dead in its tracks by lifting up her skirt and showing off a shapely leg.
One night, when they are nearing the end of their journey, Peter leaves to make some arrangements. The owners of the auto court in which they are staying see that his car is gone and assume he has left without paying. They roust Ellie out of bed and kick her out. Believing Peter has deserted her, Ellie calls her father, who is so relieved to get her back that he agrees to let her have her way. Ellie has fallen in love with Peter, but she thinks he betrayed her for the reward money, so she agrees to have a second, formal wedding with King. Meanwhile, Peter believes he's the one who's been double-crossed.
Peter gets in touch with Ellie's father to settle up. Mr Andrews offers him the large reward promised, but Peter will have none of it. He just wants to be paid $39.60 for the expenses incurred on the trip. Intrigued, the father badgers the reporter until he gets the truth: Peter loves Ellie (though he thinks he's out of his mind to do so). Peter leaves with the check he asked for.
While walking his daughter down the aisle, Andrews tells her what he has found out and encourages her to run off again; at the last moment, she does. Her father pays off Westley, who agrees to have the marriage annulled, enabling Ellie to marry Peter.

Casting

Neither Gable nor Colbert were the first choices to play the lead roles. Robert Montgomery and Myrna Loy were originally offered the roles, but each felt that the script was poor, and Loy described it is one of the worst she had ever read, later noting that the final version bore little resemblance to the script she and Montgomery were offered. ^[1]Miriam Hopkins and Margaret Sullavan also each rejected the part.^[2] Constance Bennett was willing to play the role if she could produce the film herself, however Columbia Pictures would not allow this. Bette Davis was also interested,^[3] but she was under contract with Warner Brothers and Jack Warner refused to loan her to Columbia Studios.^[4] Carole Lombard was then offered the role, but the filming schedule conflicted with that of ''Bolero'' and Lombard was unable to accept. ^[5] Harry Cohn suggested Colbert, who initially refused the role.^[6] Colbert whose first film, ''For the Love of Mike'' (1927), had been directed by Frank Capra and was such a disaster that she vowed to never make another agreed to appear in ''It Happened One Night'' only when her salary was doubled to $50,000 and on the condition that her part be completed in four weeks so she could take an already planned vacation.^[7]　
According to legend, both Gable and Colbert were loaned to Columbia Pictures, then considered a minor studio, as punishment for refusing roles at their own studios; however, this has been refuted by more recent biographies. MGM did not have a project ready for Gable and was paying him $2000 per week, under his contract, to do nothing. Louis B. Mayer loaned him to Columbia for $2500 per week, making a $500 per week profit.^[8]

Cast

★ Clark Gable ... Peter Warne

★ Claudette Colbert ... Ellie Andrews

★ Walter Connolly ... Alexander Andrews

★ Roscoe Karns ... Oscar Shapeley

★ Jameson Thomas ... King Westley

★ Alan Hale ... Danker

★ Arthur Hoyt ... Zeke

★ Blanche Friderici ... Zeke's wife

★ Charles C. Wilson ... Joe Gordon

Production

Filming began in a tense atmosphere as Gable and Colbert were dissatisfied with the quality of the script. However, they established a friendly working relationship and found that the script was no worse than those of many of their earlier films. Capra understood that they were unwilling participants and tried to lighten the mood by having Gable play practical jokes on Colbert, who responded with good humor.
Both Gable and Capra enjoyed making the movie. Colbert however continued to show her displeasure on the set. Capra recalled her dissatisfaction: "Colbert fretted, pouted and argued about her part... she was a tartar, but a cute one."^[9] She also initially balked at pulling up her skirt to entice a passing driver to provide a ride, complaining that it was unladylike. However, upon seeing the chorus girl who was brought in as her body double, an outraged Colbert told the director, "Get her out of here. I'll do it. That's not my leg!"^[10]

Awards

★ Best Picture - Columbia Pictures (Harry Cohn, producer)

★ Best Actor in a Leading Role - Clark Gable

★ Best Actress in a Leading Role - Claudette Colbert

★ Best Director - Frank Capra

★ Best Writing, Adaptation - Robert Riskin
After filming was completed, Colbert complained to her friend, "I just finished the worst picture in the world."^[11][12]. In 1935, after her Academy Award nomination, Colbert decided not to attend the presentation and instead, planned to take a cross-country train trip. After she was named the winner, studio chief Harry Cohn sent someone to "drag her off" the train, which had not left the station, and take her to the ceremony. Colbert arrived wearing a two-piece traveling suit that she had Paramount Pictures costume designer Travis Banton make for her trip.^[13] After her acceptance speech at the Oscars ceremony, she went back on stage and thanked Capra for making it.
On December 15, 1996, Clark Gable's Oscar was auctioned off to Steven Spielberg for $607,500; Spielberg promptly donated the statuette to the Motion Picture Academy.^[14] On June 9, the following year, Colbert's Oscar was offered for auction by Christie's. No bids were made for it.

Popular culture

★ An urban legend has it that Gable had a profound effect on men's fashion, thanks to a scene in this movie. As he is undressing for bed, he takes off his shirt to reveal that he is bare-chested. Sales of men's undershirts across the country allegedly suffered a noticeable decline for a period following this movie.

★ The unpublished memoirs of animator Friz Freleng's mention that this was one of his favorite films. It has been claimed that it helped inspire the cartoon character Bugs Bunny. Three things in the film may have coalesced to create Bugs: the personality of a minor character, Oscar Shapely, an imaginary character named "Bugs Dooley" mentioned once to frighten Shapely, and most of all, a scene in which Clark Gable eats carrots while talking quickly with his mouth full, as Bugs does.

★ The film ''The Bride Came C.O.D.'' (1941), starring James Cagney and Bette Davis, has a very similar plot, with an airplane in place of a bus.

★ Two Hindi movies, ''Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin'' (1991) (starring Aamir Khan, Pooja Bhatt directed by Mahesh Bhatt) and ''Chori Chori'' (1956) (starring Raj Kapoor and Nargis Dutt) are adaptations of ''It Happened One Night''.

★ The Kannada movie ''Hudugata'' (2007), starring the comedy team of Ganesh and Rekha, is adapted from ''It Happened One Night''.

References

1. Kotsabilas-Davis, James and Loy, Myrna. ''Being and Becoming''. New York: Primus, Donald I. Fine Inc., 1987, p. 94. ISBN 1-55611-101-0.
2. Wiley, Mason and Bona, Damien. ''Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards''. New York: Ballantine Books, 1987, p. 54. ISBN 0-345-34453-7.
3. Weems, Erik. ''It Happened One Night - Frank Capra''. Updated June 22, 2006. It Happened One Night - Frank Capra
4. Chandler, Charlotte. ''The Girl Who Walked Home Alone: Bette Davis, A Personal Biography''. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006, p. 102. ISBN 0-7432-6208.
5. MacBride, Joseph. ''Frank Capra, The Catastrophe of Success''. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2000. P. 303. ISBN 0-31226-324-4.
6. ''Chronicle of the Cinema, 100 Years of the Movies''. London: Dorling Kindersley, 1995, p. 252. ISBN 0-7513-3001-9.
7. All about Oscar
8. Harris 2002, p. 112-114.
9. Hirschnor, Joel. ''Rating the Movie Stars for Home Video, TV and Cable''. Lincolnwood, Illinois: Publications International Limited, 1983, p. 87. ISBN 0-88176-152-4.
10. Claudette Colbert, Unflappable Heroine of Screwball Comedies, is Dead at 92 Eric Pace
11. It Happened One Night
12. Pace, Eric. "Claudette Colbert, Unflappable Heroine of Screwball Comedies, is Dead at 92." ''The New York Times'', D21, July 31, 1996.
13. Sharon Fink. "Oscars: The Evolution of Fashion." ''St. Petersburg Times,'' February 24, 2007.
14. Gable's Gold: Auction Cashes In On Hollywood Idol

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★ Capra, Frank. ''Frank Capra, The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography''. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1971. ISBN 0-30680-771-8.

★ Harris, Warren G. ''Clark Gable, A Biography''. London: Aurum Press, 2002. ISBN 1-85410-904-9.

★ Michael, Paul, ed. ''The Great Movie Book: A Comprehensive Illustrated Reference Guide to the Best-loved Films of the Sound Era''. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1980. ISBN 0-13-363663-1.

External links

★

★ It Happened One Night on ''Frank Capra & the Film''

★ ''It Happened One Night ' at Filmsite.org

★ Review of DVD of It Happened One Night