It Happened One Night

Except… strictly speaking… of course they are. Strictly speaking, I have to admit, it’s among my favorite genres. And It Happened One Night, the first film to win the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director and Screenplay, sets the standard for all of them.

It’s a charming road caper starring two legends I’ve never seen in a film before, believe it or not. Claudette Colbert is at once cute and chic as the spoiled rich girl with an adventuresome streak — the script does give her a chance to explore a bit of range and I think her Best Actress award was well-deserved. Clark Gable is tremendously loveable as the wolfish, street-wise and virtuous reporter — and he’d have to be, considering Warne’s as-good-as endorsement of domestic violence and immediate assumption of the financial decisions of a woman he has just met, naturally a bit alarming to a modern viewer. But I’ll dismiss it as a history lesson and admit I find Gable irresistible. Together, the two have real spark, and from sparring to stolen glances it’s easy to care about what happens to them.