It Happened One Night
-
Movie of the Week: It Happened One Night (1934)
This week, because the Academy Awards are on Sunday, our Movie of the Week is Clark Gable’s Academy Award-winning performance as a wise crackin’ newspaperman in It Happened One Night. If you’re a Clark Gable fan, then you’ve seen It Happened One Night. Now an essential classic and considered the first screwball comedy, it is the prime example of a sleeper hit. Produced by the “Siberia” of studios by an un-appreciated director and performed by two stars against their will, it seems an unlikely entry into Academy Award history. But with a snappy screenplay and chemistry that burned through the screen, it indeed earns its place in history. Gable…
-
It Happened One Night, 80 Years Ago
2014 has brought about the 75th anniversary of Gone with the Wind, which has been met with much deserving fanfare. No doubt, Rhett Butler is who draws the majority of people into Clark Gable fandom these days. But this year brings about another important film milestone: the 80th anniversary of It Happened One Night, the little-film-that-could, one of the greatest romantic comedies ever made and the first to win the Academy Award “grand slam”: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay. It is safe to say that if Clark had never played Rhett Butler, he would be remembered best for Peter Warne. Director Frank Capra, one…
-
Nutshell Review: It Happened One Night (1934)
In a Nutshell: It Happened One Night (1934) Directed by: Frank Capra Co-stars: Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly Synopsis: Gable is Peter Warne, a cocky newspaperman who has just been fired. On a bus to New York, he meets Ellie Andrews (Colbert), a runaway heiress, on her way to be reunited with her new husband whom her father detests. Peter soon realizes her identity and befriends her so he can get the exclusive story. Along the way, after masquerading as man and wife at an auto camp, sleeping in a field, hitch hiking and stealing a car, they fall in love. When Peter leaves Ellie at a motel in the middle…
-
July Movie of the Month: It Happened One Night (1934)
I began “Movie of the Month” last July after the site’s first anniversary. I try to bounce around Clark’s filmography as I figured it would be rather dull to start from the beginning and end at his death. The films featured so far: June: But Not For Me May: Idiot’s Delight April: Band of Angels March: Saratoga February: China Seas January: Hold Your Man December: Red Dust November: The Secret Six October: No Man of Her Own September: Teacher’s Pet August: Never Let Me Go July: Wife vs. Secretary So, I thought it was fitting to celebrate two years of the site and one year of “Movie of the Months”…
-
“It Happened” at the Movies
I recently saw Sex and the City 2 and imagine my surprise to see Clark on the big screen with Chris Noth and Sarah Jessica Parker–I literally almost choked on my popcorn! “Carrie” and “Big” are in bed in their hotel room trying to find something to watch on TV. Big changes the channel and, lo and behold, It Happened One Night appears– the famous hitch hiking scene. He exclaims, “Here we go!” Carrie seems uninterested but comments that Claudette Colbert is pretty. Big tells her what a classic the film is and she says, “Oh, so you saw it when it was originally released?” The scene ends with them…
