It Happened One Night [PG]

When her father threatens to have her marriage annulled, spoilt heiress Ellie runs away from home with a mind to go to New York to her forbidden fiancé. On the road, she runs into numerous spots of bother and at the heart of every ‘rescue’ is tough-taking journalist, Peter. For Peter, Ellie is a wonderful story to get him his job back and for Ellie, Peter is a method for getting to New York without being caught by her father’s detectives, so the two reluctantly find themselves in collaboration. Despite their distaste for each other, there’s a long road-trip ahead of them and who knows, love might just bloom. 

The first movie to ever win the Academy Award in all 5 major categories (it was later joined by One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Silence of the Lambs), It Happened One Night is a gorgeous and really classic romantic comedy that still delivers the swoons, thrills, and laughs even today. Whilst we’ve seen the story time and time again, this movie sets itself apart from others with its superb performances and brilliant script that’s just crackling with sass, sexual tension and innuendo, and the timeless battle of the sexes. Proving that the system of reciprocity works, It Happened One Night holds something for everyone and I absolutely adored it! 

When her father threatens to have her marriage annulled, spoilt heiress Ellie runs away from home with a mind to go to New York to her forbidden fiancé. On the road, she runs into numerous spots of bother and at the heart of every ‘rescue’ is tough-taking journalist, Peter. For Peter, Ellie is a wonderful story to get him his job back and for Ellie, Peter is a method for getting to New York without being caught by her father’s detectives, so the two reluctantly find themselves in collaboration. Despite their distaste for each other, there’s a long road-trip ahead of them and who knows, love might just bloom. 

The battle of the sexes has been an archetypal norm of the romantic comedy since the dawn of cinema really, and whilst we’ve seen it take all manner of guises in such films as Adam’s Rib, His Girl Friday, or The First Wives Club, it never ceases to get old or outdated. In this film, it’s not just a battle of the sexes, but a battle of the rich and the working class, the sheltered and the street smart, and the generations as well. 

The script is wonderful: filled with delightful banter between the two romantic leads as well as mounds of sexual tension and motifs such as the blanket suspended on a string (“the Wall of Jericho”) dividing the hotel rooms into separate chambers. But it’s not all about wit and hilarious tension, on more than one occasion there are moments of beautiful tenderness and romance, the most prolific coming from Gable’s tough-talking journalist in which he describes swimming at night “with the stars so close you could reach up and stir them around.” Beautiful! 

Clark Gable delivers a performance that is annoyingly charming, sassily smarmy, aggressive, and delightfully show-offish, which is balanced with Claudette Colbert’s superior, spoilt, naïve, and sometimes-bitchy performance as Ellie. The two work off each other wonderfully. 

Starring Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns, Jameson Thomas, Alan Hale, Arthur Hoyt, Blanche Frederici, and Charles C. Wilson, It Happened On Night is a delightful movie filled with drama, tension, disenfranchisement, unlikely partners, memorable characters, romance, and comedy. The first movie to win all five major Academy Awards for Director, Screenplay, Actor, Actress, and Picture, it’s an absolute joy!