***Out In The 1930s Be-Bop Night-Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert’s It Happened One Night – A Frank Capra Film

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

DVD Review

It Happened One Night, starring Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, directed by Frank Capra, 1934

I have been on something of a tear recently attempting to delve into the 1930s and 1940s section of the American Songbook, you know, the Benny Goodman, Peggy Lee, Bing, Frank, Andrews Sisters, Billie Holiday, Dorsey Brothers, Harry James, Doris Day, Mills Brothers, Inkspots music that guided the generation that survived the Great Depression (1930s variety, not today’s close cousin) and World War II. What now is essentially roots music. The purpose of that exercise was to put together an idea of how those then youngsters survived the great wants of 1930s, the hunger wants, and how they sloshed through the war, rifle on a shoulder or waiting by the fireside for Johnny’s return through the music they heard. The music that would help make them forget the hungers for a minute, would make them not worrying about the dark war days ahead in some unknown land, or fret waiting by some lonely fireside. In short music to make them sing, laugh, jitter-bug to ease the pressure of existence.

Of course music in the mid- 20^thcentury, or now, is not the only way to alleviate those kinds of pressures as the film under review, Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night makes clear. Film, as those elegant filled matinee theaters of the 1930s testified to, could help as well. Especially comedies, better yet romantic comedies, screwball or otherwise, since that genre was what drew the young women in, and in their trail the young men. And the kings of this goldmine were one Preston Sturgis and the director here, Frank Capra. This one had all the bells and whistles back in the day.

The plotline here is pretty conventional. Spoiled brat over-indulged daughter (played by Claudette Colbert) decides to make a jail-break from her pampered life and marry a guy her father does not like. She makes that point clear by jumping off her father’s yacht in Florida determined to get to her man in New York come hell or high water. And so she is off, off by bus of all things, heading north. Needless to say that over-indulgent father is beside himself to get his daughter back on the straight and narrow and will move heaven and earth (with much dough thrown in) to do so. So our gal is a marked woman.

On that plebeian bus though said daughter runs into a rogue news reporter, a guy who has seen it all and has survived, oh yeah, and is handsome and sexy too, 1930s handsome and sexy, and maybe by today’s standard’s too (played by Clark Gable). So our trusty reporter is going grease the skids for our brat so she can get back to the big city and her man. All he wants is an exclusive story. But you do not put a sexy guy like Clark Gable, rogue reporter or not, and a fetching gal like Claudette Colbert, brat or not, together just to ease her way to some wastrel gold-digger, male version. So you know, you know if you know Hollywood, 1930s Hollywood, and today too come to think of it, that they are destined by the stars above to fall for each other. Simple plot, no question, but the play by play of how they get to that falling in love part is why this one ran the table, won five major Academy awards, back in the day. And made people forget for a couple of hours those hungers out on the streets. Enough said.