The Good: ? One or two lines
The Bad: Not funny, Obvious character development, Blasé acting, Predictable plot, In all ways mediocre.
The Basics: A huge disappointment, It Happened One Night is neither funny, nor romantic, nor dramatic; it's just bad!
The more movies I watch, the more I begin to think the works of Frank Capra are overrated. I know somewhere in my past, I saw and enjoyed Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, but recently when I watched You Can't Take It With You I found myself troubled. You Can't Take It With You won the Best Picture and I suspected that that was essentially a "lifetime achievement" award for Capra based on his prior successes. Then, though, it turned out Capra already had his Academy Award from It Happened One Night. So, tonight when I sat down to It Happened One Night, I was prepared for an awkward mix of zany and thematically heavy-handed. Instead, this 1934 film is consistent. Sadly, it is consistently droll.
While viewers are treated to a young Clark Gable stripping and there are moments I have to figure were audacious at the time (slapping a lady, men and women sharing a hotel room out of a sense of thrift, a man seeing a woman's underwear as she changes for bed), they now seem very dated. And while It Happened One Night is billed as a comedy, I do not recall laughing once, though I did smile a few times (most notably when Peter takes on a porter on the bus). As I usually note with such things, It Happened One Night is based upon a short story and this review is solely a review of the film, not the work upon which it was based.
A twenty-one year old woman escapes a ship (upon which she is essentially a prisoner) and her controlling father by jumping overboard. Swimming to shore, her wealthy father sets investigators searching for her, though she manages to elude her pursuers by taking a night bus out for New York City, she finds herself on her own for the first time in her life. Down on his luck with his reporting career, Peter Warne boards the same bus and the pair find themselves headed north. Soon, the reporter figures out that his travel companion is Ellie Andrews, the heiress.
When circumstances force the pair from the bus, Peter and Ellen take up at a small hotel and they make a deal; Ellie will continue to avoid her pursuers with Peter's help and Peter will get the opportunity to tell the story of Ellie living outside her usually fabulous lifestyle. As the reward for Ellie increases, pressure builds on Peter (and those around the pair) to turn Ellie in. Inevitably, the traveling companions develop a bond and Ellie has to decide if she wants to keep running or pair up with Peter.
It Happened One Night has some very basic comedic bits that now seem more droll than innovative. For example, Peter carries Ellie across a river at one point and he stops just long enough to surprise her with a spanking. They argue about how one cannot be both afraid and hungry at the same time and Ellie kicks straw on Peter while he actually works at making a bed in the straw. The only real moment that seemed innovative or even interesting in the humor department was when Peter convinces another bus rider to not turn Ellie in for the reward by convincing the man he is a mobster who has abducted the woman he correctly identifies as the heiress.
As well, the movie seems ridiculously dated and often contrived. For example, almost five minutes of the rather short movie are wasted with a sing-along on the bus. This gives the bus driver a few frames where we are supposed to laugh (I assume; I didn't) as he joins in the singing behind him. This causes the bus to break down in one of the worst special effects I've seen in an old film (the bus driver is clearly not the same man in the long shot as in the close ups). Sadly, the bus "episode" is not the only point where the movie makes a musical digression. Picked up by a driver when the pair is forced to hitchhike, Peter and Ellie are subjected to a musical driver who sings annoyingly.
It Happened One Night is a weird mix of supporting social mores of the time and challenging them. Peter is bossy and domineering with Ellie, even going so far as to threaten to break her neck when she acts out. At the same time, Ellie is strong enough to make her initial leap and when Peter's thumb fails to get the pair a ride, she puts out her leg. Times were clearly changing, but this is an early Depression era film that captures two people living poorly to try to achieve their goals.
It Happened One Night is populated by characters that it is virtually impossible to empathize with. Ellie's father is controlling and by extension supposed to be unlikable. But even as he manipulates Ellie and her husband for his own selfish needs, Ellie hardly stands out as a likable character. Instead, she is the archetypal rich kid and while the carrots Peter digs up are an obvious symbol for her setting aside her spoiled ways, she never pops as a likable character who is even remotely more than the type of character she represents.
Similarly, Peter is the scoundrel character who seems like he is only out for himself, but has a heart. Those of us raised after Star Wars recognize this as an archetype Han Solo fits into, but Clark Gable was known for helping to establish that archetype in cinema with several of his roles, including Peter. But Peter's arc just seems passé, even if this actually is supposed to be establishing the mold. There is a sense of predictability which permeates the film and it makes it virtually unwatchable.
In fact, It Happened One Night is particularly charmless and none of the characters or performances particularly pop. Gable is strangely familiar - like his character - in the role of Peter. Gable twinkles his eyes (or we assume he does as the film is in black and white) and he delivers his lines with his trademark sense of charm. The thing is, the charm is patented and plain and it is so predictably what one expects from Clark Gable.
Gable appears on screen with Claudette Colbert (Ellie) and while this was my first time seeing Colbert in anything. Colbert was entirely unmemorable as Ellie. Generally bland, Colbert has no on-screen chemistry with Gable and that is the death knell to a buddy comedy or a romantic comedy.
And It Happened One Night is just such a failure. It is not funny, not romantic, not dramatic enough. In fact, all it is is contrived and there are enough new movies like that; there's no need to go back to the vault for a classic disappointment like this one.
[As a winner of the Best Picture Oscar, this film is part of W.L.'s Best Picture Project, by clicking here! Please check it out!]
For other travel comedies, please check out my reviews of:
Excess Baggage
The Proposal
Couples Retreat
2/10
For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!
© 2010, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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