Five Questions I Had Watching...It Happened One Night

I will never tire of It Happened One Night. It's a perfect movie, perfectly directed, perfectly written, and perfectly acted. Whenever it's on TCM and I'm around, I have to put it on at least for a minute or two.

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So here are Five Questions I Had Watching...It Happened One Night. 

1. Did Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert get along?

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One of the top things It Happened One Night has going for it was the undeniable chemistry between Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert (they did win Oscars for their performances, after all). So you'll be happy to know that, by all consideration, they got along. 

In a 2010 Vanity Fair article about Claudette, one of her long-time friends, Leonard Gershe recalled: "I asked Claudette once, ‘Did you like Gable?’ And she gave me this funny look. ‘Darling,’ she said. ‘I did go all the way with him. Does that answer your question?’" If you continue reading that paragraph in the article, there's a corroboration that includes a...not safe for work story behind it.

Now, did either enjoy the filming experience? At the time, Columbia Pictures was a 'Poverty Row' studio and Clark was allegedly sent there by MGM as a punishment. Claudette complained every single day of filming, apparently, and told a friend, after production wrapped that, "I just finished making the worst picture I've ever made."

And for the record: Clark and Frank Capra, the director, became great pals during filming. Claudette and Frank, not so much (he directed one of her earliest films and it wasn't a pleasant experience), though they later reconciled. 

2. What was the reaction to this sweeping the 'Big Five' Oscars? 

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The 'Big Five' is a feat so rare it's only happened three times in 93 years, and after It Happened One Night became the first, it took another 41 years for it to happen again (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1975; then The Silence of the Lambs in 1991). I can't find any contemporary sources for how this feat was received at the time, but the fact that critics and audiences loved this little movie seems to have propelled it straight to Oscar night. 

For clarity, the Big Five are Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Actor in a Leading Role, and Best Screenplay. 

There had to have been at least some damper on Claudette Colbert's prospects given that it was widely considered a home run that Bette Davis was going to win for Of Human Bondage that year. When she wasn't even nominated, the backlash was so great that the Academy allowed her to be a write-in option. Claudette didn't even show up at the ceremony, she was so convinced she'd lose. When she was announced as the winner, they had to fetch her from the train station. She's the only Oscar winner to date who accepted her Best Actress Oscar in a travelling suit.  

3. How did the whole hitchhiking scene come together? 

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Perhaps the most lasting image of It Happened One Night is that of Claudette Colbert's leg offered up like a trophy on the side of the road, proving to Clark Gable that she can hitchhike too, she just doesn't need her thumb to do it. 

But here's the thing: it almost wasn't Claudette Colbert's leg in that scene. If you read anything about the making of this film, you'll know that nobody (aside from Frank Capra) wanted to make it. Claudette Colbert complained daily about being in the movie, and when Frank told her about this hitchhiking gag, she refused to take part. 

No big deal, says Frank. He hires a leg double. Claudette sees her on the set, finds out what she's doing there, eyes up the gams in question and declares "that's not my leg!" and insists on doing the scene herself. The rest is history. 

4. Did It Happened One Night really inspire Bugs Bunny? 

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Yes! The celebrated animator behind Bugs Bunny and other Looney Tunes creations (Sylvester, Tweety, and Yosemite Sam, to name a few), Friz Freleng, wrote about this in an unpublished memoir. It Happened One Night was his favourite movie and he used it as an inspiration base. 

These include: Bugs Bunny munching on carrots and his wise-cracking just like Peter Warne in the hitchhiking scene; Bugs Bunny adopting the personality of Oscar Shapeley, the passenger who wants to turn in Ellie for the money; an imaginary goon named Bugs Dooley that Peter creates to scare Oscar; and two characters, Ellie's father and King Westley being the inspiration for Yosemite Sam and Pepe Le Pew. 

5. Did Clark Gable really ruin the undershirt business? 

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Depends on who you ask and what you believe, because the jury's out on the origins of this story. All we know is, in the roadside inn scene, where Clark Gable starts undressing, his shirt comes off and there's no undershirt underneath it, and it apparently caused great scandal when audiences caught a glimpse of that bare chest. 

Various fact-checking websites have taken it upon themselves to find the truth behind this story, and I think the closest we'll ever come to an answer is that it certainly scandalized people, and there were likely more than a few gents out there who took their sartorial cues from the King of Hollywood and doffed the undershirt, too. 

Snopes posits that mayhaps Clark Gable had something to do with the decline in sales, but that lil thing called the Great Depression and garment strikes in 1934 also had something to do with it. Either way, it's a fun story, eh?