kylehearsawho It's a dumb film, enamored with its own cleverness when it's only half as clever as it thinks it is. Clark Gable plays an even more insufferable pretty boy than his usual shtick and Claudette Colbert plays a melodramatic archetype of the hysterical damsel. I hate both of them and I kept wishing that they would both get caught and the movie would just end so it would stop trying to get me to root for them. Detracting from my hatred a bit, however, is some very nice cinematography as well as some interesting and neat ways of incorporating the Great Depression setting without detracting from the main story. Some of the jokes landed quite nicely although most of them were either too dated or portrayed with too much hammy acting to get a laugh or even a chuckle. I'd give it a 4.5/10 as well as a sticker of essential American Cinema since I now know the origin of about a dozen running gags in current film and television.

JohnHowardReid NOTES: Best Picture (defeating an especially strong and varied line- up: The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Cleopatra, Flirtation Walk, The Gay Divorcée, Here Comes the Navy, The House of Rothschild, Imitation of Life, One Night of Love, The Thin Man, Viva Villa and The White Parade).Best Actor, Clark Gable (defeating Frank Morgan in Affairs of Cellini and William Powell in The Thin Man). Best Actress, Claudette Colbert (defeating Grace Moore in One Night of Love, Norma Shearer in The Barretts of Wimpole Street and Bette Davis in Of Human Bondage). (Davis was not officially nominated but received a significant number of write-in votes).Best Directing, Frank Capra (defeating Victor Schertzinger for One Night of Love, and W. S. Van Dyke for The Thin Man).Best Adapted Screenplay (defeating The Thin Man and Viva Villa).Best Picture of 1934 — Mordaunt Hall in The New York Times.3rd Best Film of 1934 (after The Barretts of Wimpole Street and The House of Rothschild) — a poll of U.S. film critics conducted by The Film Daily. Best Film of 1934 — Picturegoer (London), a magazine that also selected Clark Gable as the year's Best Actor.Re-made (unofficially) as Eve Knew Her Apples (1945); and (officially) as You Can't Run Away From It (1956).COMMENT: Holds up amazingly well, thanks largely to Capra's inspired direction. After an uncertain start with a shipboard scene between Colbert and Connolly that seems a little strained, the pace picks up (and never stops) as soon as Gable enters. Both Gable and Colbert deserved their acting awards — especially Gable who was never in better physical or charismatic form and certainly never equaled his spirited yet delightfully amusing performance in this movie. (There's even an astonishing Preston Sturges-like sequence in which Gable is hailed as "the King"). The support cast is equally adept. Technical credits, including Joseph Walker's superb photography, are impeccable.Dick Powell's 1956 re-make has none of the charm or the bizarre comedy of the original. It Happened One Night is very much a film of its time — impossible to up-date without losing its special yet entirely credible zaniness.AVAILABLE on a excellent Sony DVD.

touser2004 Except for the first scene on the boat ,her performance is perfection.Her performance is just so subtle.She changes from bossy and entitled to nervous ,unsure ,lost and back to defiant.The four scenes that stand out are : When she wakes up on Gables shoulder on the bus -so realistic When she makes excuses to Gable about arriving in New York in the middle of the night ,so that they can have one last night together -touching When she tells her father about Peter ending with "He's marvellous -both comic and heartbreaking The hitchhiking scene where her comic timing and mockery of Gable is exquisite The first three scenes are all dramatic and is what makes this film such a classic .Its not just about humour,real emotions are in play here and Colberts performance sells it to usColbert had little faith in the film but was still able to produce a quality performance .I would have loved to be a fly on the wall of that film set.

bigverybadtom This may be but a wish-fulfillment farce, but well-crafted all the same. It is never dull, and the story keeps you off-balance so the viewer never can really be sure how things will turn out.A spoiled daughter of a very rich father, tiring of his gilded cage, finally runs off to elope with a daredevil aviator, who is in New York. The father hires a slew of detectives to locate her, but she manages to get on a bus with a reporter who has heard about her situation and wants a big story to boost his career. With that purpose, he helps the daughter on her way to New York, but plenty of things go wrong along the way. And to make matters worse, the father decides to allow the marriage to take place-but complications ensue from that.Great character interaction and acting not only between the two leads, but between each of them as well as side characters make the story exciting, and the atmosphere of a dull, irritating bus ride and later running through the countryside is perfectly conveyed. Arguably one of the greatest of Frank Capra's movies.