Screenshot for a Fortnight: "IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT" (1934) (26 October-08 November 2020)

 

Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night (1934).  C: Joseph Walker.  D: Frank Capra.

Joseph Walker was one of the best and luckiest cinematographers in Hollywood history.  His list of credits would have been any cinematographer's dream, and they included Platinum Blonde (1931);  Lady for a Day (1933); It Happened One Night (1934); Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936); Lost Horizon (1937); The Awful Truth (1937); You Can't Take It With You (1938); Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939); His Girl Friday (1940); Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941); It's a Wonderful Life (1946); The Lady from Shanghai (1947); and Born Yesterday (1950).  He was Frank Capra's favorite cameraman.  They worked together on eighteen films.

It Happened One Night showcases Walker's talent perfectly.  Watch his subtle camerawork in these scenes—at the bus stop on the road when Peter Warne (Clark Gable) chases a thief; Warne carrying Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) over a moving creek; at the haystacks; and at the wedding venue.  It is beautiful work that doesn't scream, "Look at me!  See what I can do with a camera!"

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Clark Gable worked on this movie as a punishment.  He was an up-and-coming matinee idol at MGM when he filmed Dancing Lady with Joan Crawford in 1933.  During filming he developed a life-threatening case of pyorrhea and was rushed to the hospital where he had all his teeth removed.  After surgery, he had to wait two weeks for his dentures to be made.  Instead of laying about Hollywood he took his wife on a two-week Alaskan cruise and did so without getting the approval of studio boss Louis B. Mayer nor of the head of production Irving Thalberg.

Filming of Dancing Lady continued in Gable's absence.  When he showed up on set again, Mayer docked him two weeks' salary.  But that wasn't punishment enough.  It was customary for Mayer to show his displeasure with an actor by lending him out to Columbia Pictures, one of the "poverty row" studios.  Everyone, including Gable, would know why he'd been temporarily demoted to "poverty row."  And everyone, including Gable, would read it as a career insult.  When he arrived on the set of It Happened One Night he said, "Let's get this over with."

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Paramount Pictures didn't lend Claudette Colbert to Columbia for punishment.  She had four weeks free between movies, and she became aware that Capra was making a movie during those weeks.  After a quick negotiation, Capra promised her work would be done in four weeks, and Harry Cohn offered her $50,000 for it, roughly $975,000 in today's money.

She complained every day of filming.  She didn't get along well with Gable.  She didn't get along with Capra at all.  After her last day on set  she told a friend, "I just finished making the worst movie I've ever made."

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It Happened One Night marked a major turning point in Hollywood.  It was the first romantic comedy to win the Oscar for Best Picture.  It singlehandedly lifted Columbia Pictures out of "poverty row."  It made major stars out of both Gable and Colbert.  (Gable and Colbert reprised their roles for Lux Radio Theatre in 1939).  And it became the first of only three movies to win all five of the top Oscars at the Academy Awards ceremony—Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay.  (The others were One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest [1975] and The Silence of the Lambs [1991].)