David Hast: Scott, have you seen It Happened One Night?
Scott Vander Werf: I have seen It Happened One Night. I've seen it several times, and in fact, Frank Capra, the director, is one of my favorite directors going back to when I was in my early 20s, when I discovered him. In college is when I first was exposed, although of course we all watched It's a Wonderful Life, you know, growing up around the holiday times. But yeah, I love It Happened One Night.
DH: Yeah, and It Happened One Night is probably the first of his most famous films, Capra was around making movies in the silent era and made a number of good films for Columbia Pictures in the early 30s. But 1934's It Happened One Night is the first of his very famous and very successful romantic comedies. And this movie was really one of the first great romantic comedies of the sound era. It's actually pre-code, we can talk about that later, it's a late pre-code picture and it also really helped launch the screwball comedy genre.
SVW: The film is about Ellie Andrews, Claudette Colbert’s character, who’s the daughter of a vary wealthy man, who is very rebellious, she doesn’t like the fact that her father has been very controlling and she eloped with a so-called king, he’s kind of a phony king, just to spite her father. And he's very upset about it wants the marriage to be a annulled in the movie begins on a boat on their yacht and she ends up jumping off the yacht and running away in all her clothes in all her clothes jumps off the yacht and escapes and Clark Gable plays a newspaper reporter who's on the outs with his editor and in the opening sequence that we see we see with him he's drunk and surrounded by a bunch of drunken cronies who are calling him the king as he’s talking to his editor on the phone at the bus stop where Ellie Andrews, the Colbert character, is paying someone to get her a bus ticket because her father has got detectives all over the travel ways to try and find her.
DH: It's a good first scene with Gable too because it kind of sets his character up because he's actually getting fired by his editor over the phone. His editor fires him. But all these other reporters are standing there watching him at the phone booth. So after the editor has already fired him and hung up, Gable keeps talking into the phone. He's like, I wouldn't work for you for all the in the world. So he's the hero to the other guys. But, you know, he's not a phony, but it just shows that he's like he's clever.
SVW: And the Ellie Andrews character, Ellie Andrews and Peter Warren. Peter Warren is the Clark Gable character. They end up, of course, sitting next to each other on the bus. And it becomes a big road trip.
DH: And all these, you know, funny things happen along the way, which is what makes it a little bit screwball. There's definitely physical comedy starting right with her jumping off the boat, fully dressed. They ride this crowded bus, you know, basically she's heading back to New York and he makes a deal with her. You know, he's like, if you let me, I know who you are, and if you let me go along with you and have an exclusive story, I'll make sure you get there safe. Because right at the beginning, all her stuff and... and her money gets stolen, and she's got nothing. So he's kind of sort of like, I'll take you under my wing, but I get an exclusive story on you. And then as they go, all this, there's this group all stuff, right? They get jostled together on the bus. This sort of weird guy tries to hit up on her and Peter Warren helps her. They have to sleep in haystacks. There's the incredible famous hitchhiking scene where they have to hitchhike. They have to stay in hotels and pretend they're married. And there's plenty of room for comedy in the dialogue and all this stuff.
SVW: And of course, it's the whole sort of vehicle of where these people do not like each other, but as the story goes along, they're becoming more attracted to each other as well.
DH: Yeah, and this is the... It should be said, too, that part of what made this movie such a success was incredible chemistry between Gable and Colbert. But yeah, this is in the comic tradition of Shakespeare and the English restoration drama where you have a couple...thrown together by circumstances, they hate each other at first, and they inevitably fall in love.
SVW: And also this is the first of the Capra films that really, there’s a Capra-esque quality to his great movies. Everybody knows It’s a Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and You Can't Take It With You, and they all have this quality that's really started with this movie.
DH: That's true, but there's something very special about this one, and I will say, Capra has his detractors. Those movies you just mentioned are all very good. You can throw Meet John Doe in there too. But they become, as the years go by, become more more kind of heavy handed and they have a heavy message. They all have a message. It's kind of political, kind of social. Usually it's a good message, but the message is part of it. There's no message in this movie, except, you know, that you shouldn't be a pompous jerk and...that a down-to-earth guy like this reporter is a better match for her. So this is just really a kind of perfect little gem of a comedy.
SVW: Well, now talk about the fact, the pre-code aspects of the movie, which I didn't really pick up on in earlier years when I was watching it. This time around, I was watching it and seeing little aspects of it.
DH: Yeah, I mean, there's definitely sort of the racy stuff there. mean, Colbert, you know, they have to stay in these hotel rooms and they always put up this like they hang a rope and hang a blanket over it. Peter Warren does that to protect her modesty. they're sleeping in these separate little twin beds on the other side, but it's just a blanket hanging there. And they're both getting undressed to go to sleep. And, know, like the clothes that what she's wearing is pretty flimsy, you know, the kind of thing they wouldn't do after the pre-code era and he takes his shirt off entirely. I mean, this is nothing now, but at that time, that drew attention. And it isn't the kind of thing they would have done by 1935.
SVW: And I noticed that in the first scene when they're in the little cottage-like motel room that the lighting is completely dark when she's getting undressed. But by the time they're in the final motel, the lighting is a little bit more lit, and you actually see more than you did earlier.
DH: Oh, it's interesting. I didn't notice that. It is beautifully shot. think that adds to it. For one thing, it’s shot almost entirely on locations, which was unusual at the time, but they had this really low budget and they had to shoot really fast. When Claudette Colbert got the story, it was from this very low budget, small studio really. Columbia was not a big deal yet and Capra made them a big deal with his successes. So Colbert was already wary, oh, I'm doing a picture for a little...for Columbia, right? They’re no Warner Brothers or Fox. And she thought so little of it that after she heard the story, she demanded they double her salary to do it. They begin shooting immediately and finish in four weeks so she could go on a vacation she had planned. She just thought this was going to be a throwaway movie. And so to get it done that fast, they just went out and they shot a lot of stuff fast, like on locations. And when it wrapped, she thought it was the worst movie she'd been in. Gable didn't think much of it either, but lo and behold, it's the first movie ever to sweep the five major Oscars. So not only did they both win Oscars for acting, but it won Best Picture, it won Best Director, and it won Best Screenplay.
SVW: And it's interesting that they would have had that reaction, like working on the movie, and it really kind of, but it goes to the sort of nature of when you're working on a movie. You don't know what the final product really is gonna be. You can believe in it, can, you know, maybe you think the script is amazing. There are a lot of filmmakers who thought their script was amazing and as they were making it, this was gonna be great and it fails. it's interesting. The chemistry between the two of them is so good, it's fascinating that they wouldn't have realized it on a day-to-day basis, that this is clicking.
DH: Yeah, I can't understand it. You know, just, how could they, they have great dialogue, great scenes. Can't they tell that this is a really snappy little comedy? I guess not. I mean, you like you said, when you shoot a movie, you don't always know. You shoot it out of sequence. You don't always see how it's all gonna go together. But in fact, now it's one of the great classic romantic comedies.
SVW: All right, well thanks for joining us.
DH: Thanks, Scott.
[Clip] “I asked you a simple question. Do you love her? Yes! But don't hold that against me. I'm little screwy myself.”
