It Happened One Night

I was re-watching a video from Mic The Snare on YouTube the other day, his Deep Discog Dive into the albums of The Beatles. In the conclusion, he talks about how modern generations view The Beatles as just another band, not the trailblazing rock band that pioneered concepts like multi-track recording, songs as multi-part suites, concept albums, and mixing techniques like having the music sweep from left to right gradually. The younger generations can't conceive of the value of that because they've heard its results all their lives. These things have always been there for them, and going back to hear the first band to do it doesn't have the same resonance. Movies are like that too. Psycho's exploration of the link between sexuality, violence, and mental health crawled so Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct could run. Fluff like the Frankie & Annette beach party movies laid the groundwork for teenagers to be taken seriously as a demographic in the 80's with The Breakfast Club or Pretty In Pink. But show those movies to someone who didn't grow up with them as new and, unless they're a certain kind of person, they won't be as stricken by their nature as first steps on a path. It Happened One Night is one of those movies. Anybody who watches it will see its DNA all over Hollywood in the years to come. The wedding scene at the end is lifted almost wholesale by Mel Brooks for Spaceballs. The comedic imperiled-road-trip structure would inspire so many movies, from the Hope/Crosby Road To movies to Planes, Trains & Automobiles. There's even some strong if circumstantial evidence to suggest this movie helped create Bugs Bunny. But this movie's biggest influence is on the romantic comedy genre. Every movie with a pair of mismatched people who go from combative to romantic owes a debt to this movie. But what makes It Happened One Night special is that, free from the trappings of the genre that would crystalize in the decades that followed, this is allowed to do its own thing. There is no love-at-first-sight meet-cute that then descends into butting heads. There's no liar-revealed third act kick-off -- in fact, the nature of their relationship is laid out in plain and simple terms as a business arrangement pretty early on. Westley, the man main character Ellie has secretly married, isn't presented as a loutish jerk or a wet blanket that leaves the audience wondering what she sees in him. These changes from the formula we all know so well are refreshing enough that, when there are elements of the formula -- the near-kiss, the misunderstanding -- they're easy to swallow. Besides, I can't complain about them being shopworn cliches when this is among the very first romcoms in existence. Helping along this screwball journey is that the chemistry between Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert is so great, it's tangible. When they're just convenient traveling partners -- she a runaway daughter of a banker trying to get back to a husband her father disapproves of, and he a struggling newspaper reporter looking for a big story to save his job -- their bickering is energetic and exciting. The way it softens over time, even as they fight it, hits the exact romantic tone it needs to. Colbert is great as a brassy woman who is tired of being sheltered by her status, but also has no idea how the real world works. Gable is similarly excellent as a jaded, cynical man just trying to keep his head above water, and has a hard time accepting the idea that the way out of his predicament is to open his heart. It's fun and sweet and charming without being cloying or tiresome. I came into this expecting a whimsical, harmless, but ultimately weightless and average proto-rom-com. I did not expect it to be so charming and enjoyable. I can't go so far as to label it one of the greatest films of all time as some critics and film institutes have, but I'm not mad that they think that way. And I'm not mad at all that it won Best Picture. It does what it does, and it does it to the best of its abilities, and that's about all you can ask from a movie: to represent its genre as best it can. And considering that Oscar would pivot towards rewarding epics and movies that had Something Important To Say, it's nice to see a movie among the winners that is only concerned with leaving the viewer feeling good.