Where to watch It Happened One Night (1934)
It Happened One Night is available to stream in US on Tubi TV and YouTube. It can also be rented or bought from Amazon and AppleTV.
A runaway heiress joins forces with a sharp-tongued reporter who sees a career-making story in her escape. When their bus leaves them behind, the unlikely pair must travel together through roadside setbacks, evading those searching for her while their constant clashes gradually become mutual understanding.
Cast: Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns, Jameson Thomas, Alan Hale, Arthur Hoyt, Blanche Friderici, Charles Cahill Wilson, Ernie Adams, Jessie Arnold, Irving Bacon
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Trivia & production notes
- Claudette Colbert agreed to star in the film only if her salary was doubled to $50,000 and all her scenes were completed within four weeks so she could take a planned vacation.
- Colbert and director Frank Capra had previously worked together on her 1927 film debut, For the Love of Mike, which was such a failure that neither wanted to collaborate again.
- The widespread story that Clark Gable was sent to Columbia Pictures as punishment for refusing a role at MGM has been partially refuted by recent biographies; MGM actually profited by loaning him out at $2,500 per week while paying his contracted $2,000 weekly salary.
- Colbert initially refused to perform the famous hitchhiking scene where she pulls up her skirt, calling it unladylike, but agreed to do it herself when she saw a chorus girl brought in as her body double.
- Gable and Colbert were dissatisfied with the original script at the start of filming, prompting director Capra to allow screenwriter Robert Riskin to rewrite it during production.
- The film was only moderately successful in its initial theatrical run but became a major box office hit after being released to secondary movie houses, particularly resonating with audiences in smaller towns.
- Claudette Colbert was nominated for Best Actress but skipped the Academy Awards ceremony because she believed she had made a terrible film and was departing on a cross-country train; she had to be retrieved from the train after winning.
- It Happened One Night was the first film to win the five major Academy Awards—Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Writing—a feat matched by only two subsequent films.
- Columbia Pictures had such low expectations for the film that it did not mount a significant advertising campaign before release.
- Critics at The New Yorker panned the film as nonsense and dreary, while other contemporary reviewers praised it for its bright dialogue, acting, and direction.
Adapted from the Wikipedia article It Happened One Night, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.
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