Cinema Hype

When making an exciting but long-overdue comeback, is it best to sneak in the side door or to march up the front steps, flaunting one’s own late but eminent worth? We at CH are all for the latter—being occasionally late ourselves, not that we’d ever admit it—and so we say: Project 501 is back! It’s been a long vacation, but the chronological Oscar train is running once again, and so we’re starting up with the 1934 Best Picture winner, It Happened One Night. Like, now.

Feeling as I do about the current state of romantic comedies, my curmudgeonly little heart watched It Happened One Night and wondered why they don’t make ‘em like that anymore. In fact, I’ve decided that they do make ‘em like that anymore—or, in any case, they try. In fact, I’m testing the theory that all modern romantic comedies are the inheritance, or maybe imitators, of this one movie.

There are plenty of things in It Happened One Night that aren’t so common to the modern romantic comedy. Long, chatty scenes, for one thing. Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable spend a lot of time together, talking the whole time, and we’re there to see it all. No quick cuts here; just talk, talk, talk. These two are what the average therapist might call “verbal processors.” Indeed. There are also twin beds (how Pushing Daisies!), showing some leg to speed up the hitchhiking process, and—spoiler ahead—a total lack of kissing at the end, which generally doesn’t fly today.

But there are also lots of things that we see over and over again in romantic comedies generally, and maybe it’s a case of doing those things better rather than a case of doing them first—i.e. I’m not claiming these were new story elements, even in 1934—but it’s a little uncanny seeing a million other well-known and well-worn tropes played out in this one story. There’s the falling-asleep-on-the-other-person’s-shoulder bit, the pretend-marriage-to-distract-skeezy-stranger thing, and most importantly, the race to prevent a tragic misunderstanding and therefore save the relationship (Notting Hill, anyone?). Gable and Colbert are perfectly adorable—who knew pre-Rhett Butler misogyny Gable was so cute?—and they play all of these iconic scenes in such a way that imitation is inevitable. This may be the token romantic comedy, the Juno of its day, but it’s aged well and made its mark. Nicely done.

Next up: Mutiny on the Bounty! More Clark Gable!

It Happened One Night, Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Notting Hill, Juno, Oscar winner, Best Picture, 1934, Project 501