Criterion Collection: It Happened One Night | Blu-ray Review

Winner of five Oscars, Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night remains an outstanding entertainment, and a touchstone of Hollywood’s most enduring cinematic genre: the Romantic Comedy. Filled with naughty, cloying sexuality and a lovable slate of archetypal characters, the film encapsulated the aspirations and desperations of 1930s America, even while evoking giggles of delight from a battered audience facing a dark and uncertain future. While the Great Depression is never addressed directly, the pressures of those days infuse every aspect of It Happened One Night, from its depiction of pampered, frivolous one per-centers to its array of dodgy conmen, hapless working stiffs and penniless drifters. The fact that love continued to find a way through the world’s political and economic maelstroms was a comforting notion in 1934; a notion perfectly suited to Capra’s trademark optimistic populism.

The film’s stagebound, talky exposition scene may feel awkward at first, but in truth it’s a marvel of narrative efficiency. In a few short minutes, viewers will learn all about the pretty heiress Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) and her impulsive elopement to foppish aviator King Westley (Jameson Thomas). Ellie’s father (Walter Connolly), a man so rich dollar bills seem to drip from his custom made suits, is livid and seeks to annul the marriage. When Ellie dives from her father’s yacht and swims to the Florida shore in a bid for freedom, she begins an incognito journey from Miami to NYC, with Daddy’s private eyes in hot pursuit. Along the way she will meet a down-on-his-luck newspaperman named Peter Warne (Clark Gable) who agrees to help her in exchange for exclusive rights to her story. Thus It Happened One Night melds the genres of road movie and rom-com; a formula that has been repeated in properties as diverse as Smokey and the Bandit (1977) and Y tu mamá también (2001), just to cite two of countless examples.

Since It Happened One Night has a lot of ground to cover, both in terms of miles and emotions, it moves at a sprightly pace. However Capra takes the time for a few set pieces that have become iconic cinematic moments. When Gable and Colbert find themselves in a cheap motel for the night, he decides to call her bluff by engaging in an illustrated lecture of various methods men use to undress, Filmed in one take, the comically lascivious scene is a marvelous bit of physical acting, and Gable’s strip tease, couched in the guise of an educational treatise, raises the film’s sexual temperature to the limit of polite society. Capra had a fondness for pushing the post-code envelope in charmingly subtle ways; in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) Ward Bond’s policemen reacts to the sight of hotttie Violet Bick (Gloria Grahame) with the seemingly innocent yet hormonally loaded quip “Think I’ll go home and see what the wife’s doing.”

Despite its lofty stature, some aspects of It Happened One Night have been woefully under appreciated over the years. Alan Hale’s brief appearance as an opera singing con artist gives the film a peppy jolt and his stolen automobile provides a clever narrative path to conclusion. The prolific, though largely forgotten character actor Roscoe Karns is superb as Shapely, an uber-glib glad hander who in many ways epitomized the crafty souls who found a way to survive, perhaps even thrive, in a time of dreary economic prospects. The famous “Walls of Jericho” scene, in which Gable rigs a blanket on a clothesline giving Colbert a sense of privacy and audiences an assurance of chasteness, will become a metaphor as the film progresses, and serve as a brilliant bit of sexual shorthand in the film’s delightful denouement.

Disc Review

The picture quality here, while certainly acceptable, doesn’t rank with Criterion’s best. However, it’s clear the issues stem from the source material. Cinematographer Joseph Walker was known for being quite inventive with camera equipment, and much of It Happened One Night appears to have been shot using behind-the-lens nets, rendering a soft, glimmery image. While the effect works well for the story, it is not a look that successfully translates to HD. Likely the only work around would have introduced grain, and fortunately the colorists decided to err on the side of original intent with this 80 year old negative. The audio is wonderfully crisp and clear, with none of the optical track noise one would would expect from a source of this vintage. The film’s rapid-fire dialogue and subtle sexual witticisms punch through in all their enchanting glory.

Screwball Comedy?, a new conversation between critics Molly Haskell and Phillip Lopate
Here, the two esteemed critics engage in a lively and lengthy debate on whether It Happened One Night truly qualifies as a screwball comedy. Citing such examples as Trouble in Paradise and Design for Living, Haskell and Lopate analyze the genre and discuss techniques directors have historically used to create rapid pacing and snappy patter. 39 minutes.

Interview with Frank Capra Jr. from 1999
In this 11 minute segment, the director’s son goes into detail on the origins of It Happened One Night, and the difficult shooting schedule imposed on his father due to Claudette Colbert’s busy calendar. Full of interesting background and juicy nuggets of gossip, this supplement is definitely worth the watch.

Frank Capra’s American Dream, a 1997 feature-length documentary about the director’s life and career
Narrated by Ron Howard, this program is a thorough recounting of Capra’s life and filmography. Featuring interviews with Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Joseph McBride and host of industry luminaries, the documentary chronicles Capra’s rise from newspaper boy to the toast of Hollywood. Lengthy film snippets are included from the director’s work, including several rarely seen productions from Capra’s early days. 1 hour 35 minutes.

New digital transfer of Capra’s first film, the 1921 silent short Fultah Fisher’s Boarding House, with a new score composed and performed by Donald Sosin
Based on a Rudyard Kipling poem, this 11 minute short is a lurid tale of bawdy at liberty seamen and the morally dubious women who love them.

American Film Institute tribute to Capra from 1982
This star-studded television broadcast features testimonials from Jimmy Stewart, Peter Falk, Bob Hope, Jack Lemmon and numerous other friends and colleagues of Capra. The director himself takes to the podium and delivers closing remarks to the warmly appreciative crowd. 60 minutes.

PLUS: An essay by critic Farran Smith Nehme
Nehme, perhaps better known to classic film buffs as the blogger Self Styled Siren, offers a loving and well written piece that places It Happened One Night within the context of other popular movies of the 1930s. Her essay is included as part of a fold-out poster which contains production credits and notes on the transfer.

Final Thoughts

It Happened One Night has only gotten better over the years; its vivid and amusing depiction of a bygone social culture adding to its impressive charms. Frank Capra built his reputation on broad brush democratic fictions yet, as the film makes clear, that populism was based on the careful crafting of thousands of perfectly observed details. Few directors could manifest character and story as quickly and effectively, with such jaunty and entertaining results. America would eventually recover from the Great Depression, just as it would eventually cease to be enthralled by Capra’s sunny, rose-colored visions. But one would be hard pressed to name an entertaining film with a better ear for its nation’s zeitgeist than It Happened One Night.

Film: ★★★★★/☆☆☆☆☆
Disc: ★★★★/☆☆☆☆☆