I was raised almost exclusively by my mother because my dad worked on the road, I loathe misogyny in films even back when it was the norm and I can school pretty much anyone at “Sex and the City” trivia- so it has nothing to do with a gender bias, but here it is. I hate most romantic comedies because of the unrealistic expectations they place on men.
Romantic comedies make women think that irresponsible and emotionally impulsive men are desirable. We are supposed to ignore things like consequences and interrupt their weddings and have enough available credit to fly across the country on a whim just to stop them from making a bad choice. In chick flick world it is totally okay and, in fact, romantic to pursue people who are already married as long as you can somehow “prove” you love the person more than their spouse. Worse yet we are supposed to mangle our faces and develop receding hairlines so we can look like John Cusack while doing so. I have always wondered who I should kick in the nuts for creating these expectations: Hugh Grant? Garry Marshall? Jennifer Aniston? Nope, turns out it’s Frank Capra.
For unleashing “It Happened One Night” on the world, Frank Capra has done the unforgivable. Sure there had been romantic comedies prior to this film, but this one in particular seems to be the root of the genre as we know it now; the opposites attract motif, the zany misadventures that lead the two main characters to strange places where comedic things can happen to them that a normal storyline can’t allow for, even the rich girl/poor guy dead horse- all these things owe a great debt to and can be blamed on Frank Capra. The same way “North by Northwest” explored the themes of travel, escape and no restriction- “It Happened One Night” damn near destroyed them.
Right out of the gate we discover that this will be a class-based story as an obviously rich family argues onboard a yacht. The daughter, Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) is throwing a temper tantrum over the fact that her father has just essentially kidnapped her after learning that she had married a man of questionable nobility. They go to great pains to explain that this act has occurred before the marriage has been able to be consummated (the Production Code of the early 30’s left a black eye on cinema, pushing morality into films that relied on a certain absence of morals for the plot to work). I don’t think anyone bought this in the 30’s and we clearly don’t buy it today. I have no problem suspending disbelief when I am watching a fantasy or horror film, but this sort of absurdity has no place in a film that is set in present times with normal, human characters. Yet we are still to believe that the two eloped but haven’t had a chance to get freaky yet, which Ellie’s father is banking on so that the marriage can be quickly annulled and forgotten.
Ellie is defiant and of course madly in love with this guy she hardly knows so she escapes her father’s custody by jumping off the side of the yacht and swimming safely to shore. From there she plans to take a bus to New York to be reunited with her new husband. Another passenger on the bus is a predatory reporter named Peter (Clark Gable) whose defiant attitude towards his editor has recently gotten him fired. He opportunistically jumps on the chance to exploit Ellie’s status as a celebutante by exchanging exclusivity rights to her story in exchange for his help in getting to New York due to the fact that she demonstrates in several small ways that she is unable to take care of herself on a cross-country endeavor.
Ellie is self aware enough to know that she has to accept the offer and, despite her first impression of the roguish Peter it doesn’t take long at all for her to start responding to his dark humor and sarcastic ways. Their adventures lead them to various roadblocks; missing their bus, attempted theft of their luggage and having to share a room in a boarding house to name a few. There are several attempts to make the plot work but still stay within the guidelines of the Breen Offices who enforced Hollywood’s moral code and it is painfully obvious that this is what is happening, which takes away a lot of the enjoyment and spontaneous, open-road spirit that should come from such a film.
“He despises everything about me. He says that I'm spoiled and selfish and pampered and thoroughly insincere… And he blames you for everything that's wrong with me. He says you, you raised me stupidly. Oh, he’s marvelous!” (Ellie Andrews “It Happened One Night”)
One segment in particular where this is evident happens when Ellie and Peter are forced to sleep in the same room because they can only afford rent for one. Ellie expresses some objection to rooming with a man who isn’t her husband, especially when Peter starts undressing and she sees him bare-chested. Peter compromises by creating a crudely erected wall separating them with a clothesline and some fabric and referring to it as The Walls of Jericho with snide piety. Rather than taking the artistic approach and seizing on the opportunity to thumb his nose at the Breen Offices for stifling his creativity by sneaking in a double-entendre-laden exchange that could be taken to be completely clean when confronted with it (see the Egg-Cooking Sequence in Tod Browning’s “Freaks”) Capra, for the most part, circumvents controversy.
However, in the same breath, this film borders on risqué and winds up suffering from a sort of identity crisis. In the shared room scene we see Ellie undressing and even hanging her underthings on the clothesline and at one point Peter even symbolically slaps Ellie on the ass. It is admirable in some respects but mostly just confusing how the narrative jumps back and forth between ridiculously contorting the story to conform to standards of “decency” and depicting some things that would even be considered shocking by today’s standards (at least to the Pat Robertson types). Please pick an angle and stay with it!
Near the end of their journey a misunderstanding leads to Ellie think Peter has abandoned her and plans to cash in on the reward that her father is now offering for information leading to her return when in fact he is trying to secure enough money for his exclusive story so that he can have a respectable nest egg with which to ask Ellie to marry him. She relays her heartbreak once she is reunited with her father who, when he meets Peter face to face discovers that he is in love with her too and their parting of ways was a horrible miscommunication.
Of course we get our happy ending when Ellie’s father straightens out the mess, pays off the husband to go away and encourages his daughter to run off with Peter. So, in case you’re not keeping score; her father disapproves of her rushing into marriage with a strange man whom he will likely have to support with his money who has a dubious background. After great expense and hassle he gives his blessing for her to rush into marriage with a strange man whom he will likely have to support with his money who has a dubious background… Again, where is the continuity?
One of my biggest complaints with this movie is what I perceive to be sheer confusion as to what direction they wanted to take Ellie’s character. Though she is clearly meant to be less independent than she believes she is, she does display an ability to find creative solutions to problems; particularly the scene where Ellie and Peter are hitchhiking unsuccessfully until she hikes up her skirt and exposes her leg to a passing male motorist. Ellie, who has previously displayed little-to-no street smarts, suddenly has the ability to make something out of nothing. In many films this would represent a turning point for the character, as she would be developing and learning self-reliance, but not only does she remain relatively helpless after this, but it is a shame that the potential to create a strong female lead is degraded by what seems to be a self-awareness that her usefulness ends with her sexuality.
I understand the need for fantastic stories in film during the Great Depression. The horror and suspense genres took off at this time and gave people an excellent means of escapism. However, in the case of “It Happened One Night” it almost feels condescending. As opposed to fantasy films that removed people from the hardship and tragedy of the real world, this film seems to just flaunt an opulent lifestyle in the faces of people for whom this was not a realistic or attainable way of life. Even though there is a prevalent “money can’t buy happiness” thread sewn into the storyline, I can’t help but feel like this subject shouldn’t have even been brought up at all if Capra cared at all about taking people’s minds off the economic climate at the time.
Overall, if you want a great, insightful film that explores the separation of the classes, rich heiresses marrying for love rather than money or prestige, curt working class men putting spoiled princesses in their place and sleazy reporters who wind up falling in love with the women they are trying to exploit pass this film by and watch the far, far superior “The Philadelphia Story” instead. I would say I have no idea how this film won as many Oscars as it did, but then I did some research and learned that there were only about 3 nominees in most of the categories.
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