It Happened One Night (1934)

Directed by Frank Capra. Starring Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Roscoe Karns, Walter Connolly, Charles C. Wilson, Jameson Thomas, Alan Hale.

Eminent romantic comedy (and one of the originators of the screwball comedy form) is an endearing delight pretty much the entire way, with Colbert as an eloped heiress on the run from her disapproving father (Connolly) and Gable as the mischievous reporter scooping out a story by joining her on an eventful road trip from Florida to New York City. Gable builds the Walls of Jericho, Colbert proves that the leg is mightier than the thumb, he shows her how to properly dunk a donut, she does an overboard dive that puts Goldie Hawn to shame, and don’t be surprised if the guy writes a book about it someday. After a tremendously zippy seventy-five minutes, the final act delays the inevitable a bit too long, but it must be working on at least some level if Mel Brooks would heavily borrow from it for a parody of a space opera. First film to earn the “Big Five” Academy Awards (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Screenplay); though Capra would go on to win two more Oscars for Best Director, he never came close to topping or matching the work he did here. Story reworked for the collegiate set in Rob Reiner’s The Sure Thing in 1985.

92/100