一夜风流 It Happened One Night review by Scott

In 1934, It Happened One Night was released to both critical and popular success. It was based on a short story, Night Bus, which was first published in Cosmopolitan and it featured two of the most popular stars of its day.
It went on to win all five major Academy Awards; Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay. This was the first movie ever to win those five and it would be forty-one more years until it would happen again, when a very different movie, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, would repeat the Oscar sweep. Silence of the Lamb's is the only other movie to have also won those same awards.

The quintessential screwball comedy, It Happened One Night tells the story of Ellie Andrews, a spoiled heiress who has married against her father's wishes. He holds her hostage on his yacht in Miami while he attempts to get the marriage annulled. The ever resourceful Ellie escapes the yacht and begins her journey to New York where she hopes to reunite with her new husband, King Westley, and live happily ever after.

On the bus to New York, she meets up with Peter Warne (Clark Gable), a drunken reporter. From the moment Ellie falls on Peter's lap when the bus starts moving, and he quips to her, 'The next time you drop by, be sure and bring the folks.', and she smiles in spite of herself, you know they are destined to be together.

The bulk of the movie tells of their often hilarious trip by bus, on foot, and by stolen car as Peter helps Ellie on her way to New York so she can find King, and he can get the story of a lifetime. Of course, over time they fall in love and by the time they have reached New York, Ellie is ready to marry Peter instead of King, but again, of course it isn't that easy.

The movie contains funny scene after funny scene, many of them cinematic gems. The night at the motor lodge in which Peter ties the blanket between their beds and declares it 'the walls of Jericho', ranks right up there as probably one of the most famous scenes ever filmed. And the morning after, when the detectives show up and Peter and Ellie improvise a scene as man and wife, has to be the funniest scene in the movie. The chemistry between Gable and Colbert fairly drips from the scenery.

Gable who was one of, if not the, biggest male star of the 1930's, is remembered today for really only two roles. This one and Rhett Butler. Anyone who ever doubted his ability to act should watch this movie and Gone with the Wind. His range is phenomenal when these two movies are viewed side by side. As the flippant Peter Warne, his quick wit and charming grin make him the perfect romantic lead, and as Rhett, while he may share Peter's cockiness, he also shows enormous dramatic depth. He wasn't known as 'The King' for nothing.

Claudette Colbert, although not as well known as Gable today, is perfect as the spoiled brat; Ellen Andrews. Her playful cuteness and innocence are the perfect foil to Gable's worldly reporter. She matches him line for line and together they generate some of the best on screen chemistry ever seen.

Ranked number 35 on the American Film Institute's greatest films of all time list, It Happened One Night is a true classic in every sense of the word, one that withstands the test of time and indeed defies it completely.

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