CAPRAESQUE: Of or evocative of the movies of Frank Capra, often promoting the positive social effects of individual acts of courage.
Frank Capra: (Italy, 1897-1991)
· It Happened One Night (1934) 5 oscars
· Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) 1 oscar, 10 nominations
· It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) 3 nominations
(WIKI) It Happened One Night is a 1934 screwball comedy directed by Frank Capra, in which a pampered socialite (Claudette Colbert) tries to get out from under her father's thumb, and falls in love with a roguish reporter (Clark Gable). 105 minutes.
The plot was based on the story Night Bus by Samuel Hopkins Adams.
(Filmsite) It Happened One Night is one of the greatest romantic comedies in film history, and a film that has endured in popularity. It is considered one of the pioneering "screwball" romantic comedies of its time, setting the pattern for many years afterwards
(Wiki) It was one of the last film romantic comedies created before the MPAA began enforcing the 1930 production code in 1934. The final title is an oddity, as the movie takes place over several nights and none is particularly key to the plot.
The film was the first to win all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay), a feat that would not be matched until One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and later by The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
(IMDB) Distribution and Production Company: Columbia Pictures Corp.
Columbia Pictures was considered a Poverty Row studio at the time of the film's release. Both MGM and Warner Brothers would loan out temperamental actors to Columbia as a 'humbling experience.' Studio boss 'Harry Cohn', who was loathe to pay for his own roster of contract stars during the early 30's, would invariably assign them to work on Frank Capra's films. Although the studio had received Oscar nominations prior to this picture, its success virtually single-handedly lifted Columbia out of the ranks of poverty row.
(WIKI) Production
Filming began in a tense atmosphere as Gable and Colbert were dissatisfied with the quality of the script. However, they established a friendly working relationship and found that the script was no worse than those of many of their earlier films. Capra understood that they were unwilling participants and tried to lighten the mood by having Gable play practical jokes on Colbert, who responded with good humor.
Both Gable and Capra enjoyed making the movie. Colbert however continued to show her displeasure on the set. She also initially balked at pulling up her skirt to entice a passing driver to provide a ride, complaining that it was unladylike. However, upon seeing the chorus girl who was brought in as her body double, an outraged Colbert told the director, "Get her out of here. I'll do it. That's not my leg!" During the filming, Capra asserted, that Colbert "fretted, pouted and argued... she was a tartar, but a cute one.". After her acceptance speech at the Oscars ceremony, she went back on stage and thanked Capra for making the film.
The sensibilities of the time played a role in some of the key scenes. Riskin specifically wrote scenes where throughout the film, Peter hangs a blanket over a rope between their beds for Ellie to have some privacy, calling it "the Walls of Jericho". The end of the film has a telegram from Peter who has run off with Ellie as they both await news of the annulment with Westley, in part, it says, "the walls of Jericho are starting to topple"... Due to the strictures of the time, the device was the only plausible one that would be acceptable to a "general" audience.
Casting
Neither Gable nor Colbert were the first choices to play the lead roles. Robert Montgomery and Myrna Loy were originally offered the roles, but each turned the script down, and Loy later noted that the final version bore little resemblance to the script she and Montgomery were offered. Bette Davis wanted the role, but was under contract with Warner Brothers and Jack Warner refused to loan her. Carole Lombard was unable to accept, because the filming schedule conflicted with that of Bolero. In addition, Loretta Young also turned it down.
Harry Cohn suggested Colbert, who initially refused the role. Colbert's first film, For the Love of Mike (1927), had been directed by Frank Capra and was such a disaster that she vowed to never make another with him. She subsequently agreed to appear in It Happened One Night only when her salary was doubled to $50,000, and on the condition that her part be completed in four weeks so she could take an already planned vacation. According to legend, Gable was loaned to Columbia Pictures, then considered a minor studio, as punishment for refusing a role at his own studio; however, this has been refuted by more recent biographies. MGM did not have a project ready for Gable and was paying him $2,000 per week, under his contract, to do nothing. Louis B. Mayer loaned him to Columbia for $2500 per week, making a $500 per week profit.
Reception
After filming was completed, Colbert complained to her friend, "I just finished the worst picture in the world." In 1935, after her Academy Award nomination, Colbert decided not to attend the presentation and instead, planned to take a cross-country train trip. After she was named the winner, studio chief Harry Cohn sent someone to "drag her off" the train, which had not yet left the station, and take her to the ceremony. Colbert arrived wearing a two-piece traveling suit that she had Paramount Pictures costume designer, Travis Banton, make for her trip.
Influence (IMDB)
According to a NYT article on how films can effect business, the scene in which Gable undresses and reveals that he is not wearing an undershirt adversely effected the sales of undershirts throughout the nation, but no other information has been located to confirm this.
(Filmsite) Animation expert Friz Freleng, in his unpublished memoirs, claimed that the film helped to inspire the creation of various cartoon characters:
· Bugs Bunny's fast-talking personality was partially based on Oscar Shapeley (Roscoe Karns), and also related to the one mention by Gable of an imaginary hitman named 'Bugs' in the film; (Bugs Bunny's debut film was "Porky's Hare Hunt" (1938)); Bugs Bunny's carrot-eating technique was based on Peter Warne (Clark Gable) and the way he talked while chewing on a carrot
· Yosemite Sam was inspired by Alexander Andrews (Walter Connolly)
· Pepe LePew was inspired by King Westley (Jameson Thomas)
(Jon Lewis) Romantic Comedy formula:
· Principal characters desire a change.
· Convince selves and others that this change is for the better, they are someone new, different.
· Ah-ha moment: not happy with remake; want old.
Often have class clash, lots of rich and famous.
Screwball Comedy (GreenCine)
What is this thing called screwball? Most commonly thought of as a cycle in Hollywood romantic comedies, running from the notable year of 1934 through to 1942, screwball is still very much with us, as a beacon of the giddy achievement possible within popular entertainment.
"Screwball" came to the fore directly with the adoptation of the rigid, censorial Production Code of 1934, which put an end to the carnal delights of the "Pre-Code" era of early sound cinema. In Pre-Code Hollywood, such topics as adultery, homosexuality and prostitution could be more or less openly addressed, and characters clearly slept together without benefit of clergy.
The development of the madcap lovers of screwball comedy can be seen as compensation, asserting some form of rebellion against the harsh strictures that insisted even married couples be seen sleeping in separate beds. Thus came the childish qualities of many screwball protagonists.
But what this fails to account for is the mature understanding of male-female relationships achieved in the best of these films, together with their warm romanticism.
(Modern: think Doris Day, Julia Roberts MBFW, Goldie Hawn, Steve Martin, Ben Stiller)
It Happened One Night
A drunken Warne is introduced being hailed by his fellow reporters, en route to being fired, with the salute "Make way for the king!" The scenario enacted in It Happened One Night has the old king (rich dad Connolly) and the false king (King, the husband) displaced by the true king (Gable), much more of a common man than either.
It Happened One Night thus works as a New Deal allegory, with old money and the sponging parasite Westley, associated with the decadence of the 1920s, giving way to the honest workingman Warne. The film takes pains to demonstrate that Gable's character won't propose to Ellie until he's proven himself financially. His failure to demand any more money from Connolly's character than what he's already spent wins dad's approval. The film works to demonstrate the passing of a torch from an old patriarch to a new one, a notion strengthened by Gable's role in maturing Colbert away from a "brat" who won't eat the food her dad offers her, to a woman who's learned to eat doughnuts and carrots properly.
Yet the film can also be seen as a 1930s feminist high point, if only for its famous image of Ellie Andrews running away from her remarriage in favor of eloping with Peter Warne. More so than in any previous era in Hollywood history (and more so than for decades to come), the era of screwball comedy was a period of strong women's roles, of feisty women who fight back against their male lovers on roughly equal terms.