It Happened One Night (1934)
Ellie Andrews has just tied the knot with society aviator King Westley when she is whisked away to her father's yacht and out of King's clutches. Ellie jumps ship and eventually winds up on a bus headed back to her husband. Reluctantly she must accept the help of out-of- work reporter Peter Warne. Actually, Warne doesn't give her any choice: either she sticks with him until he gets her back to her husband, or he'll blow the whistle on Ellie to her father. Either way, Peter gets what (he thinks!) he wants .... a really juicy newspaper story.
Two great lovers of the screen in the grandest of romantic comedies!
Peter Warne: I never did like the idea of sitting on newspapers. I did it once, and all the headlines came off on my white pants. On the level! It actually happened. Nobody bought a paper that day. They just followed me around over town and read the news on the seat of my pants.
Busch Gardens - S. Grove Avenue, Pasadena, California, USA
(Andrews estate)
Franklin Canyon Reservoir, Santa Monica Mountains, Los Angeles, California, USA
Santa Anita Ave in Arcadia, California, USA
(railroad crossing where Peter Warne is held up by train)
Ventura Blvd., Thousand Oaks, California, USA
Columbia/Sunset Gower Studios - 1438 N. Gower Street, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA
(sound stages)
Clark Gable gave the Oscar he won for his performance in this movie to a child who admired it, telling him it was the winning of the statue that had mattered, not owning it. The child returned the Oscar to the Gable family after Clark's death.
It Happened One Night (1934) became the first film to perform a "clean sweep" of the top five Academy Award categories, known as the Oscar "grand slam": Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay. This feat would later be duplicated by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) in 1976 and The Silence of the Lambs (1991) in 1992. However, It Happened One Night is the only one not nominated in any other category.
Columbia did not have much faith in the film and released it without much fanfare and little advertising. It was quickly pushed out to secondary theaters where it suddenly became a runaway success, and eventually became Columbia's biggest hit to date.
While shooting the scene where he undresses, Clark Gable had trouble removing his undershirt while keeping his humorous flow going and took too long. As a result, the undershirt was abandoned altogether. An urban legend follows that it then became cool to not wear an undershirt, which supposedly resulted in a large drop in undershirt sales around the country. Legend also has it that in response, some underwear manufacturers tried to sue Columbia.
Friz Freleng's unpublished memoirs mention that this was one of his favorite films, and that it contains at least three things which the character "Bugs Bunny" was based on: the character Oscar Shapely's (Roscoe Karns) personality, the manner in which Peter Warne (Clark Gable) was eating carrots and talking quickly at the same time, and an imaginary character mentioned once to frighten Oscar Shapely named "Bugs Dooley." Other mentions of "Looney Tunes" characters from the film include Alexander Andrews (Walter Connolly) and King Westley (Jameson Thomas) being the inspirations for Yosemite Sam and Pep? Le Pew, respectively.
Continuity
Ellie Andrews calls Peter by his name at the terminal before she actually knows it. In a later scene, she asks him what his name is.
When Peter is making breakfast for Ellen, as the table is first set, there are six doughnuts on the plate in the lower left corner of the screen, but when they sit and begin eating and discussing what there is to eat, there are only two.
As Peter is singing and threatening to take off his pants, Ellie begins to bolt behind the hanging blanket. A half second later there is a shot of Ellie looking at him for a solid second, and then bolting to the other side of the blanket.
In the exterior view of the bus running off the road (after the "flying trapeze" song), the driver is a different person and the curtain that is behind him in the interior view is missing.
After Peter gets the car from the "thief", Peter's luggage is in the back seat. As he stops the car to pick up Ellie the luggage falls to the floor. When Ellie steps into the car the luggage is back on the seat. When the car pulls away, the luggage disappears again.