You know those rom-coms that come out just about every year? you know, where the guy/girl ends up with the girl/guy that isn't their fiancé? Yeah? Well this movie is the grand daddy of all of them. Sweeping the oscars to become the first movie to nab the 'big five' (best picture, best director, best actor, best actress and best screenplay). Nowadays the plot is fairly predictable:Man (Clark Gable) meets society princess (Claudette Colbert) on a bus to New York where she plans to meet her husband; Man is a newspaperman who's got a bone to pick with his boss. Colbert is Ellie Andrews and Gable is Peter Warne and they fight like cat and dog- See where this is going? One thing i didn't mention: Ellie fell off the radar and everyone is out looking for her. Peter has got the scoop.
Predictable? yes. tame? yes. funny and romantic? hell yes! It might be noticeably dated but it is hard not to love it more and more. Hell, we love THEM. Gables easy charisma and Colbert's near-pitch perfect line delivery add up to one of the first (and greatest) true rom-coms. There is no doubt that the basic formula has been improved upon (perhaps best seen in 'Roman Holiday [1953]), but this movie is still very likeable and good fun.
I could gush about Gables charm and physical looks and wonder how the Ellie character could have possibly resisted him for most of the movie, but that would be redundant and i'd come up fruitless in the end anyway. Colbert is kind of underrated, she has been in a few good movies, such as The Palm Beach Story (1942) and she almost (she had to drop out due to a back injury) had the iconic role of Margo Channing in All About Eve (1950), which of course went to Bette Davis who made it one of the greatest female roles in history. I guess Colbert as Margo is one of those 'what if?' moments. In any case she was good.
It was directed capably by Frank Capra (who was a master director of these kinds of movies) and written with great wit and intelligence (remember when comedies had that?) by Robert Riskin. This is a great movie that, while being a little long in some parts, is worth the watch just so you can laugh and be amazed by how influential this movie is on modern romantic comedies. I'm not going to waste my writing space (although i gladly would so i could talk more,) telling you exactly how it was influential, you'll have to see it for yourself- i'm not your slave.
"Well i proved once and for all that the limb is mightier than the thumb" Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert), It Happened One Night
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