One of the most persistent complaints about the voting academy is the way they seem so short-sighted about comedy. Out of the 91 films thus-far selected for the year’s top prize, only six have been flat-out comedies. Two of those comedies, It Happened One Night and You Can’t Take It With You came out within four years of each other, both won Best Picture, and both earned a Best Director Oscar for Frank Capra. Neither film is a monument of his best work, but at least It Happened One Night is a happy glimpse of the greatness to come.
The movie was a box office smash and was so popular that it became the first film in history to win Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay – a feat that, to date, has only happened on two other occasions, the other two being One Flew Over the Coo-Coo’s Nest in 1976 and The Silence of the Lambs in 1992.
Lauded as the first great screwball comedy It Happened One Night follows the romantic adventures of a wealthy socialite (Claudette Colbert) who runs away from her controlling father and hits the road with a worldly-wise reporter (Clark Gable). It is hard to dislike It Happened One Night. As a road picture, it is bouncy and fun with moments that we remember like the hitchhiking scene, the walls of Jericho, and the sing-a-long on a crowded bus, but for a Capra film, it seems a little innocuous.
Capra’s best films like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Meet John Doe and It’s a Wonderful Life feature great comedy wrapped in social commentary. His best work is challenging and thoughtful but with this film he seemed to be taking it easy. Colbert took to comedy like a duck to water but I think Gable had a little further to travel. He didn’t want to be part of this film – he was under contract to MGM and was loaned to Columbia largely as punishment for his off-screen behavior. Legend has it that when he reported to work on the first day he said “All right, let’s get this over with.” The cynicism should be present in his performance but he works through his objections, playing a worldly wise man’s man but also finding himself falling inexplicably in love with his road companion (who wouldn’t?) It says something of his professionalism that he turned in such an effective performance in a film that he initially rejected.
It Happened One Night is a sweet film, a fun adventure even if doesn’t ring necessarily essential. I have often wondered if I may have liked it more if it didn’t have the mantel of Best Picture hanging over it. Perhaps I could take solace in the fact that this movie laid the groundwork for the genre of romantic comedies to come – the entire wake of films about squabbling lovers from different backgrounds who fall into each other’s arms in the last reel. It’s a good formula that I think would get better over time.
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