Cinema
It Happened One Night
Frank Capra · 1934
Synopsis
Ellie Andrews, the daughter of a millionaire, has secretly married the aviator King Westley, of whom her father disapproves. Held on her father's yacht off Miami while the marriage is annulled, she jumps into the water and takes the night bus to New York. Peter Warne, a journalist who has just been fired, recognises her and offers to help her in exchange for the exclusive rights to her story. Money soon runs short: a blanket hung up separates their beds at the motel, Peter's thumb fails where Ellie's leg stops a car, and they have to eat raw carrots.
Context
The starting point is a short story by Samuel Hopkins Adams, adapted by Robert Riskin, a frequent collaborator of Capra. The studio management considered the vogue for bus films to be over, and several performers turned down the roles one after another; Claudette Colbert accepted only for fifty thousand dollars, double her fee. It has long been said that Clark Gable had been loaned out by his studio as a punishment, a version that recent biographies partly dispute. Colbert refused to be filmed undressing, and her clothes were thrown over the blanket stretched between the beds.
Who it is for
A comedy of one hour forty-five. The French title runs from New York to Miami, whereas the film makes the opposite journey, from Florida northwards.
Prizes and reception
First film to win the five major Oscars, in 1935; it took forty-one years for the feat to be equalled, and it has been equalled only twice.
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