It Happened One Night-Indeed-When Clark Gable And Claudette Colbert Wouldn’t Let Some Ratty Blanket Come Between Then-Except For That Damn Hollywood Code

It Happened One Night-Indeed-When Clark Gable And Claudette Colbert Wouldn’t Let Some Ratty Blanket Come Between Then-Except For That Damn Hollywood Code  

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

It Happened One Night, starring Claudette Colbert, Clark Gable, directed by Frank Capra, 1934  

There is no question in my mind that the 1930s and 1940s were the Golden Age of screwball comedies with the likes of the director of the film under review the Oscar-heavy It Happened One Night  Frank Capra, Preston Sturgis, hell, even Howard Hawks taking a run at it, leading the way. Maybe it was the Great Depression and people needed a little welcome relief from their pressing daily troubles putting one foot in front of the other, and putting food on the table (one later screwball comedy Sullivan’s Travels made basically that same point. Maybe it was just the shear acting talent, direction, and script-writing coming together to form a perfect storm during the period0. Whatever it was It Happened One Night was the benchmark for later efforts.

Here’s Oscar’s why. Ellen, played by Claudette Colbert, is a spoiled socialite who for kicks, or just to tweak her father elopes with a gold-digger from her circle and runs away, or tries to, when her stern father wants the whole affair annulled. The “runaway” part is to reunite with that gold-digging husband in New York while she is stuck in Miami. Since her father, once Ellen flew the coop, had put an all-points bulletin for her return with a reward attached she surreptiously sneaked passage on a plebian travel bus. That bus trip with accompanying antics is where Ellen meets the wandering ex-newsman Peter, played by Clark Gable, who will provide plenty of action in trying to have her come off her high horse and get down in the mud with regular folk.

Of course the hijinks also include plenty of tensions between the pair as they do their dance around each other for a while getting in and out of scrapes which show Ellen at least that here was a real man, a man to challenge her in plenty of ways including her virtue. I wonder what really went on that night they spent in the cabin with the skimpy clothesline and a ratty blanket the only thing separately them. Might that be the “it happened one night.” See this film and make your judgment.