It Happened One Night (1934) on Netflix
Heiress Ellie Andrews escapes her father's yacht and boards a bus for New York to rejoin King Westley, the aviator she married in secret. Reporter Peter Warne rides the same bus.
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- Rotten Tomatoes98%
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Plot summary
Wall Street banker Alexander Andrews has his daughter Ellie sequestered on his Florida yacht while lawyers arrange an annulment of her marriage to the pilot King Westley. Ellie swims ashore and takes a bus toward New York to find Westley, and her father offers a $10,000 reward for news of her. A thief steals most of her money on the trip, and Peter Warne, a newspaper reporter who has lost his job, helps her. When a washed-out bridge strands them overnight at a motel, he offers a deal: an exclusive on her story in exchange for getting her to New York.
Cast
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about It Happened One Night (1934)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Colbert decided not to attend the Academy Awards because she felt she had "just finished the worst picture in the world" and planned a cross-country railroad trip; after she was named the winner, studio chief Harry Cohn sent someone to "drag her off" the train, and she arrived in a two-piece traveling suit.
- Colbert initially balked at pulling up her skirt to entice a passing driver, complaining that it was unladylike, but on seeing the chorus girl 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!"
- The unpublished memoirs of animator Friz Freleng call this one of his favorite films, and it may have inspired aspects of Bugs Bunny, who appeared six years later: a minor character calls Gable's character "Doc", an imaginary "Bugs Dooley" is invoked to frighten him, and Gable eats carrots while talking quickly with his mouth full.
- Miriam Hopkins rejected the part of Ellie, Robert Montgomery and Myrna Loy were then offered the roles but both turned down the script, and Margaret Sullavan also rejected the part; Loy later noted the final story bore little resemblance to the script she and Montgomery had been given.
- Bette Davis wanted the role but was under contract with Warner Brothers, and Jack L. Warner refused to lend her out; Carole Lombard was unable to accept because Columbia's proposed filming schedule would conflict with her work on Bolero at Paramount.
- Colbert agreed to the role only if her salary was doubled to $50,000 and if her scenes were completed in four weeks, so that she could take a planned vacation.
- On December 15, 1996, Gable's Oscar for the film was auctioned off for $607,500 to Steven Spielberg, who donated the statuette to the Motion Picture Academy.
