It Happened One Night (1934)

Got another for you guys!

It Happened One Night (1934)
 Dir. Frank Capra
 Writ. Robert Riskin
 Stars: Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly 
 Rated: Not Rated (but today it would probably be a PG)
 105 mins.
 Comedy, Romance
 IMDB Rating: 8.3

This movie is a classic. That has to be said and got out of the way before I proceed.

I had to watch this for the Genre chapter of my Film Analysis class, and I like old movies, but I’m not a big Clark Gable fan (shocking, right? lol) so I wasn’t expecting very much. Our Genre was screwball comedy and man, this one was hilarious! I loved so many things about this movie that it’ll be hard to get through what I want to say without going full-spoiler about it.

The best part of this whole movie is how sharp all the dialogue is. Every little snapped remark is clever and quick and you almost have to wait a second to get why it was so funny before you laugh. The ‘I don’t need your help!’ attitude on Ellie is just amazingly funny when you go into it knowing exactly how helpless she is out of her depth like that. And the way Peter seems so fed up with her at the same time is so amusing. It’s one of those ‘I hate you!’ ‘No I hate YOU!’ situations that’s always so entertaining.

The idea of the journey, the struggle for going so far, and the journey towards self discovery, is so well done in this movie. The narrative structure follows along so perfectly without compromising the humor in the situation. The characters are just so perfectly written for the whole scenario. It’s just such a good movie.

My Rating: 7/10