It Happened One Night

"It Happened One Night" is one of those films that even if you haven't seen it, you'd swear that you have, it has that certain familiarity to it. It has scenes such as "The Walls of Jericho", or "The Hitchhiking" scene that have been re-done, or paid homage to in countless other films, it's like they have always existed. But there is always an original, and like most, the original is the true classic, and the one that remains the most true, the most fun, and the most charming.

To describe the basic plot of "It Happened One Night" is to describe any other romantic comedy that came after it. A runaway heiress escapes her father in order to marry the man she loves, one the way to meet him, she runs into a newspaper reporter who wants nothing more than to write a story about her. She hates him, he hates her, but in the end you know they are going to end up together.

The heiress in this film is played by Claudette Colbert, and the reporter is played by Clark Gable. The two won Oscars for their performances, and you can sense by their chemistry that one made the other look better and vise versa. Their on-screen relationship is a true partnership, they are the heart and soul of it. The film is really a series of misadventures they share, and how they fall in love in the process, it's as simple as that.

Colbert's character Ellie Andrews is seen as a spoiled rich girl in the beginning, who disobeys her father by running off to be with the man she loves. This man is a famous aviator who is described by everyone but Ellie as a phony. Gable's character is Peter Warne, a man of principle, who is very down to Earth and sees Ellie as nothing but a "brat" which he calls her on more than one occasion. In order to hide from Ellie's father, she and Peter pose as a married couple to most places they know. This requires them to share a motel room where "The Walls of Jericho" come into play. This is where Peter ties a rope between his bed and Ellie's then throws a blanket over it so they don't see eachother undressing. This gesture is both a funny and truthful example of Peter and Ellie's relationship, and soon the walls must tumble.

"It Happened One Night" remains a touchtone in romantic comedies, it is sometimes regarded as the first of its kind although that's not necessarily true. What I do know is this is a film that got it right, it still remains fresh and modern to this day. The difference between "It Happened One Night" and the romantic comedies being made today is simple: you can actually see these two characters gradually falling in love with one another. The comedy is never broad, I found it to come from situations that seemed real such as the wonderful hitchhiking scene which is really a wonderful compact comedic moment where Gable tries to show Colbert the right way to hitchhike, when it is in fact she who has the fool proof way.

"It Happened One Night" was directed by Frank Capra, who had a knack for putting in the right amount of humanity in his films, and you can really see that in a lot of the scenes, which make you fall in love with these characters even more. However Capra had a great and unique sense of humour, they were always based on character traits and motivations, it all rings so true. The film would be the first of only three to win all five major Academy Awards, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay, you can sort of tell by that just how irresistible this it was back then.

"It Happened One Night" holds up as a classic because it never seems old, I've watched it since I was a kid and the characters and situations always seem new to me, even though I can probably recite the film line by line. The romantic comedy is a dying breed these days. that's because they have taken scenarios like this film and stripped it of its essence. The elements are always there but the magic isn't, "It Happened One Night" keeps its magic by remaining so effortless, and charming, it's hard not to fall in love with it.