It Happened One Night

Screening on Film

Directed by Frank Capra.
With Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly.
US, 1934, 35mm, black & white, 105 min.
Print source: Sony Pictures

Relieved from the onus of studio ‘expectations,’ we slammed through the film clowning, laughing, ad-libbing. [...] But two ‘happenings’ during the shooting of It Happened One Night may be worth noting. One: Colbert fretted, pouted, and argued about her part; challenged my slap-happy way of shooting scenes; fussed constantly [...]. But all her little tantrums—motivated by her antipathy toward me—were rehearsals for the picture. All she had to do was bug Gable on camera as she bugged me off camera. And she was wonderful in the part [...].

And, two: The metamorphosis of Clark Gable, the ‘bad boy’ exiled to Siberia. [...] I believe it was the only picture in which Gable was ever allowed to play himself: the fun-loving, boyish, attractive, he-man rogue that was the real Gable. — FC