Review of It Happened One Night (1934) by Grant L — 20 Oct 2010

Heres a film that without question found a spot in my Top 100 films of all time list, I've seen it on almost every single list when it comes to being one of the best films ever made. As for its genere it's clearly the best romantic comedy ecer made and inspired many many of the great romantic comedies we know and love today.

First I have to talk about the master himself Clark Gable who to me gave his 2nd best performance of his carrer next to Gone With The Wind of course but I woulden't be mad if somebody thought this was his best.

What I loved most about it was his ability to switch his character whenever he needed to espeailly the scene where him and Ellie and to do something fast to get past the cops and Gable of course came up with a msterplan to shake them off, making it seem like they were a recently married couple and played like that coulden't stand the sight of each other and than not a second later the cops are gone and Peter and Ellie are laughing it up then somebody else walks in and they switch their characters another time it was just an overall perfectly well put together scene.

Also alot of people know Gable for his abilty to love people and make them feel good but he can also make somebody feel terrible and miserable which he did perfectly whenever him and Ellie had a dispute about something.

But Gable didn't do all the work in this film Claudette Colbert did an amazing job as well with earing her Oscar in every scene with Gable which she held her own in every single one and in some scenes she even stole the show from Gable sometimes which is something not a lot of people could do.

Their chemistry wasent near perfect it was perfect they could act like a couple to be, a young just married couple, or even an old married couple at times, they convinced me in every single scene and played their characters perfectly.

Besides the acting I have to talk about the direction from Frank Capra who gave us a great romantic comedy but also gave us a mix of comedy, drama, and love all at the same time. His direction moved smooth sometimes he made things predictable but still there was also things in there that I didn't expect to happen.

The writing/screenplay from Robert Riskin was near perfect and very derserving of the Oscar. He gave us a smart, witty, and real script with some very very smart humor involved in it and I had a smile on my face almost all the way throuhout the film which rarley happens for me.

This was also the first film to ever sweep the Oscars with winning all the major catergories and giving Oscars to Gable, Colbert, Capra, and Riskin which I thought were all derserving. I look at this film as romantic masterpiece and I don't think even after 76 years will be matched by any romantic comedy.

Like I said a masterpiece. 100%.