It Happened One Night

Well my goal was to try and have a new post every Monday. I know I haven't really had a schedule but was going to try. Well didn't make it this week. The Lost Series finale took up four and a half hours of my time on Monday. That used up all my thinking for the day. So here it is a day late.

I decided to try something new this week. For the first time I watched a movie from netflix.com. I didn't realize that I could watch movies on the Internet and it didn't affect how many DVDs I would get a month. And it worked pretty well. I watched most of it at once but towards the end my dog was making a lot of noise and wanted to eat. I was hoping she would let me finish the last 15 minutes but she wouldn't wait. So I paused till the next day when I watched the last 15 minutes.

The movie is about a rich heiress(Claudette Colbert) who runs away from her father to meet up with a man she secretly married. She leaves her father in Florida and takes a bus up to New York. On the bus she meets up with a reporter(Clark Gable) looking for his next story. He promises to help her as long as he can have exclusive rights to the story. Of course as they travel together they fall in love and by the time she gets to New York she needs to make a decision as to stay married to her husband or have that marriage annulled and marry the man she just fell in love with.

This was the first romantic comedy to win Best Picture, and it was funny and entertaining. The playful banter between the two stars is great, and they get into some funny situations.
The end when she finally admits she loves him is a little over the top for my tastes but not horribly bad. The best line in the movie is at the end when the father asks Clark Gables character if he loves his daughter and Clark Gable says "YES! But don't hold that against me, I'm a little screwy myself!" Although one of the most famous scenes is probably the hitchhiking scene where Clark Gable is trying to show her how to hitchhike using his thumb and it isn't working. And she goes out there and shows a little leg and gets a car on the first try. He says "Why didn't you take off all your clothes? You could have stopped forty cars." Then she replies "Well, ooo, I'll remember that when we need forty cars."

It was one of the first movies to go on to become a real classic. The American Film Institute had it listed as 35 on their Top 100 movies and 8 on the Top 100 Comedies and 38 on their Top 100 Romantic movies. And not only was it the first romantic comedy to win best picture but it was the first of only 3 movies all time to win all 5 of the top Academy Awards. Those are Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay. That wouldn't happen again for over 40 years. It was also the first of three wins in five years for Frank Capra for Best Director.

While the movie was good and went on to become a classic and probably deserved to win. I am personally liked The Thin Man better. The Thin Man is another comedy (ranked #32 on AFI List of Comedies) about at Nick and Nora Charles a private detective and his rich wife and cant forget their dog Asta who help the police solve a murder while on vacation in New York. This movie is very funny with a lot of good one liners. After watching It Happened One Night I decided to rewatch this one to compare the two. And while The Thin Man had some slow moments I still find it funnier. All Nick cares about is getting his next drink but he still solves the case. The dinner party at the end is hilarious when he invites all the suspects to dinner to reveal who the killer is. They ended up making 5 more Thin Man movies. Definitely one of my favorite movies of the 30's.

Its interesting that both movies were up for best picture. These days you hardly ever find any comedies nominated for best picture and here you had two really funny movies nominated. And they both have to do with rich heiress'. I think its because of when they were made. It was in the middle of the depression and people just needed an escape. And what is better then seeing rich people just enjoying themselves and getting into hilarious situations. And after saying that we will see how Sex and the City 2 does this weekend. Another movie about rich women in funny situations. Funny how history repeats itself. I just don't think Sex and the City 2 will be nominated for best picture. But you never know now that there are 10 movies nominated.