Synopsis
An heiress (Colbert) flees from her overprotective father (Connolly), who is attempting to prevent her from formalizing marriage to a man he considers a gold digger. She meets a reporter (Gable) who has just been fired by his paper. He makes a deal to take her to her new husband in return for the story. In the course of their journey, they fall in love. A misunderstanding separates them temporarily, but finally love triumphs.
TCM Film Festival, 2013
It Happened One Night was shown in the
Lovers on the Run
category at the TCM Classic Film Festival in 2013. Film
scholar Cari Beauchamp discussed the film.
Beauchamp noted that several actresses turned down the heiress role, including Constance Bennett, Miriam Hopkins, Myrna Loy, Margaret Sullivan, and Loretta Young. Claudette Colbert agreed to do the film if she was paid enough money; her salary was $50,000. Clark Gable, on the other hand, only received $8,000. Louis B. Mayer, head of production at MGM, determined to show producer Irving Thalberg that he was in charge, loaned Gable to Columbia. Both Colbert and Gable won great acclaim (and Oscars) for this film. Walter Connelly, an important character actor at Columbia Pictures, has the lynchpin role as Colbert's father who counsels his daughter against the gold digging aviator and instead promotes the honest reporter. Harry Cohn, the head of production at Columbia Pictures, gave director Frank Capra and writer Robert Riskin, total control. The picture was the first to win the five most important Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay. This triumph elevated Columbia Pictures into the status of a major studio.
Further Reading