At a glance, It Happened One Night could be pegged as a romantic comedy, a road picture, a chase story, or a social commentary. Actually, it’s all of the above—but it isn’t epic in scope or length, it’s not noble in philosophy or grand in spectacle, and it isn’t a war movie. It doesn’t bear the salient characteristics of its honored predecessors. Still, this simple film manages to resonate and entertain like few others. What’s clear from the start is that while I wasn’t looking, the bar of filmmaking was raised to the next level.

Quite by accident, director Frank Capra ran across an article in Cosmopolitan Magazine called Night Bus. It captured his imagination and became the basis of a screenplay he developed with writer Robert Riskin. Meanwhile Louis B. Mayer felt like teaching Clark Gable a lesson at MGM by loaning his big star to Columbia for this seemingly modest project that both Fredric March and Robert Montgomery had turned down. By good timing and great fortune Gable was snagged for the hard-nosed reporter Peter Warne. Claudette Colbert had just finished filming Cleopatra and Imitation of Life for release that same year and was happily packing her bags for a much-needed vacation when Capra approached her to play Ellie Andrews, following a pass on the role from Myrna Loy, Constance Bennett, and others. After reading the script and thinking little of it, Colbert told Capra she had four weeks before she left for Sun Valley. She also demanded twice her usual salary of $25,000 per picture at Paramount, clearly putting up hurdles to make the offer less appealing. Capra was determined and went to Harry Cohn, certain his studio boss would never agree to her terms. Cohn told Capra if he could make the movie in four weeks, Colbert could have her $50,000 paycheck.

So the entire film was shot on the relatively small budget of $250,000 in just four weeks, and the rest is history. All the elements come together in a splendid zenith. The acting is spontaneous and natural for the most part, excluding an occasional, in-your-face gag, but there are prolonged moments of silence throughout, where Capra lets the camera linger on a face and asks the audience to create the dialogue in their minds. It works beautifully, largely due to the incomparable talent of the two leads. Their subtle pictures paint a thousand words.

Claudette Colbert as Ellie Andrews and Clark Gable as Peter Warne travel on the night bus to New York.

Make no mistake, without Capra at the helm, this movie wouldn’t be the same. In fact, it could have been a disaster. He gives us flawed characters that border on unlikeable—even despicable at times—and certainly opportunistic. It’s the reason he struggled to find A-list talent. In less capable hands, audiences wouldn’t care a whit what happened. The way this genius-director presents them, however, is appealing and charming. In the first scene with Ellie and her wealthy father (the brilliant Walter Connolly), Capra allows their chemistry to overtake the prickly dialogue and volatile situation. It’s obvious these two care for each other even if they’re scrapping to the point of Ellie hurling lunch trays aside in a spoiled rampage and diving off the edge of Daddy’s yacht to escape his bidding. Ellie, you see, has eloped with King Westley (Jameson Thomas), another opportunistic rogue. She did it to spite her father, and whether she loves Westley or not is irrelevant. She is asserting her independence, and that’s what matters. The scene ends with Andrews messaging detectives that his daughter has escaped … again.

Ellie pays an elderly woman to buy her a bus ticket to New York, and it’s at this same terminal that we find our inebriated reporter Peter Warne, telling off his newspaper editor over the phone with a group of braying bystanders egging him on. The dialogue is witty, although dated, but it’s because of the tongue-in-cheek atmosphere throughout this film that it works when Peter calls his boss a “gas-house palooka,” and Gordon (the crackling Charles C. Wilson) in return tells Peter his antics have cost him a “gob o’ dough.” We’re witnessing the birth of the screwball comedy as Peter and Ellie end up on the same bus, sitting together in the back. Thus begins a journey, a chase, a social commentary between the common man and rich society, and in time a romance. These two rotten people soon bring out the best in each other.

The trip isn’t without its bumps. Ellie’s luggage is stolen at the first stop, and she has nothing but four dollars left. Peter grows suspicious when she refuses to wire for money or involve the police. He discovers her identity after spotting a newspaper headline with her photo, but instead of ratting her out, he works a deal to their mutual benefit. He promises Ellie she’ll get to King Westley in New York without interference from Daddy’s detectives or the media. In exchange, she’ll agree to give him the exclusive scoop of her elopement with Westley. Considering her lack of options, Ellie accepts.

Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable.

Several iconic scenes follow, including “the Walls of Jericho,” where Peter uses a clothesline and blanket to divide their sleeping areas in the same motel room, the hitchhiking scene where Ellie shows how easy it is to stop traffic with a glimpse of her shapely leg, and speaking of shapely, Roscoe Karns gives a memorable if annoying turn as fellow traveler Oscar Shapeley.

It Happened One Night was the first film (of only three to date) to win the Grand Slam at the Academy Awards, picking up all top five statues: Best Picture, Best Director (Capra), Best Actor (Gable), Best Actress (Colbert), and Best Screenplay (Riskin). It’s also a rare win for a comedy when most Oscar champs are dramas. What sets this movie apart isn’t its lofty intentions or noble message, it’s the sheer, top-notch quality in every aspect of the medium. It’s a perfect little film with a wry sense of humor and a heart of gold.

It Happened One Night