#89. It Happened One Night
- Year: 1934
- Country: USA
- Production: Columbia, 105m B&W
- Director: Frank Capra
- Producer: Frank Capra, Harry Cohn
- Screenplay: Samuel Hopkins Adams, Robert Riskin
- Photography: Joseph Walker
- Music: Howard Jackson, Louis Silvers
- Cast: Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns, Jameson Thomas, Alan Hale
- Oscar Wins: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Screenplay
- Blog Club Rating: 8.5/10
Abridged Book Description[]
Make no mistake, It Happened One Night - the first of only three films to win all five major Academy Awards - is movie magic... Capra was expert at cleverly weaving a story from altogether familiar and ordinary motifs: eating, verbal slang ("ah, nuts"), snoring, washing, dressing and undressing. True to the romantic comedy formula, identities are momentarily dissolved whenever a masquerade is necessary or able to be exploited for secret entertainment... Critics can't rhapsodize over Capra's power of montage or mise en scène; style was a functional, conventional matter for him. But he did have a perfect sense of script (in both overall structure and small details), and a brilliant rapport with his charismatic actors. Gable and Colbert help to truly equalize this one-upmanship battle of the sexes, diluting that ideological thrust of the script which suggests that proletarian guys should teach spoiled gals a thing or two about real life.