It Happened One Night
Directed By: Frank Capra
Grade: C+
Ellie Andrews decides to run away from her domineering father to meet up with the man she loves in New York. While on the way there she winds up with Clark Gable, a down on his luck reporter, and a series of problems that keep them together longer than they would have expected.
This was my first pick for the Blind Spot Series and a movie I’ve really wanted to watch for a while.
Chances are if you’ve ever seen anything about this movie it’s the famous hitchhiker scene where Gable “teaches” her how to do it.
On the one hand they have nice chemistry and I loved Claudette Colbert. She’s a total natural. The script is quick and the leads have a snappy back and forth. But I just couldn’t really connect with it.
Movies and books like these I’m usually good about certain things that wouldn’t really work today. Like her father basically imprisoning her on the yacht for one. (Though I suppose if you’re going to be imprisoned somewhere a yacht works.) I think what really made it hard though was Gable’s character of Peter was just such a… grump.
(And grump is being kind.)
He still has that Gable charm going for him in bits but mostly it was just a little too much. I couldn’t figure out why Ellie would fall in love with him. Which made buying the whole romantic portion of the movie pretty tough. Her dad also does a fairly large about face at the end.
Recommend: Eh. I’d say it’s worth checking out for Claudette Colbert alone but I’m hoping I like and connect more with my other choices.
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