Anyone who has watched TV around Christmas has probably seen a Frank Capra movie because every year they play \u201cIt\u2019s a Wonderful Life\u201d non-stop for a week straight.\u00a0 And that\u2019s a really good Capra film.\u00a0 But Capra made a bunch of good films in his day and some of them are among my favorites.\u00a0 And my all-time favorite is \u201cIt Happened One Night.\u201d\u00a0 Filmed in 1934, it stars Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in a screwball comedy that wants us to believe that an heiress on the run from her father would meet up accidentally on a bus with a reporter who needs her runaway story to salvage his newspaper career.\u00a0 Their trek from Florida to New York begins with each despising the other and ends up, of course, with them falling in love.\u00a0 But of course, the course of true love is never smooth and never was that truer than with this goofy tale.\u00a0 The key to the success of this movie, for me, is the chemistry between Gable and Colbert.\u00a0 He is the seemingly self-confident man of the world.\u00a0 He knows it all and claims to be able to write a book about every skill from how to correctly dunk a doughnut, to how to thumb a ride on the highway.\u00a0 She starts out as the arrogant little rich girl.\u00a0 Pretending to need no one\u2019s help and always in charge.\u00a0 Once they broker a deal to travel together to their mutual interests, they proceed to heckle each other and bicker until they pretty convincingly fall in love.\u00a0 My wife and I have always thought of this as a pretty much perfect date movie.\u00a0 It has a little something for both sexes.\u00a0 Gable gets to strut and brag in his king of the jungle act and Colbert is the sarcastic little woman.\u00a0 In one of my favorite scenes Gable is demonstrating his various \u201cfoolproof\u201d methods of thumbing a ride.\u00a0 After a string of failures, he dejectedly admits maybe he shouldn\u2019t write that book after all.\u00a0 Colbert says she\u2019ll get a ride and won\u2019t even have to use her thumb at all.\u00a0 Of course, she walks over to the rod, lifts her skirt above her knee and the first passing car slams on the brakes and the emergency brake too.\u00a0 An amused Colbert says to the glum Gable that she had just answered an age-old riddle.\u00a0 He asks what and she replies \u201cthat the limb is mightier than the thumb.\u201d\u00a0 And he viciously replies \u201cwell why didn\u2019t you just take off all your clothes and you could have gotten a hundred rides?\u201d to which she serenely replies \u201cwhen we need a hundred rides I will.\u201d<\/p>\n
As I mentioned earlier, the couple don\u2019t smoothly move from reluctant partners to sweethearts without obstacles and by the last reel misunderstanding and anger almost conspire to destroy this match made on a Greyhound Bus.\u00a0 But of course, happily ever after is bound to be in a Capra film so the fear of tragedy is never serious.<\/p>\n
The movie is full of little details of life in depression era America and the vignettes with the denizens of the bus and other locales add charm to the story.\u00a0 Capra filled his depression era movies with scenes of the common people displaying compassion and camaraderie in the face of adversity.\u00a0 The scene where the bus riders amuse themselves with a relatively untalented singing performance is amusing and appealing if a little contrived.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve never seen the movie, I unreservedly recommend it.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t like it then I recommend you do not read any more of my reviews.\u00a0 Our points of view on film would be just too far out of synch to allow any value to you.\u00a0 And may God have mercy on your poor shriveled soul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Anyone who has watched TV around Christmas has probably seen a Frank Capra movie because every year they play \u201cIt\u2019s a Wonderful Life\u201d non-stop for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,239,238,237],"tags":[208,26,206,204,205,91,209,203,207,43,191,39],"class_list":["post-1122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-movie-reviews","category-classic-movie-reviews","category-reviews","tag-208","tag-american-exceptionalism","tag-capra-corn","tag-clark-gable","tag-claudette-colbert","tag-comedy","tag-date-movie","tag-frank-capra","tag-great-depression","tag-movie-review","tag-ocf-classic-movie-review","tag-populism"],"yoast_head":"\n