Welcome to Pre-Code Decode, a recurring column where we go back and look at pre-Hays Code Hollywood to see how they handled the issues of their day!

by Billy Russell, Staff Writer

I don’t tend to get writer’s block often.  Usually, I’ll just fake it till I make it.  If I have no idea what to write, I’ll sit down, bang something out, remove what doesn’t work, leading up to what does, do I fine polish and call it a day.

For that matter, I don’t tend to get nervous when I’m going to write about a movie I love.  If it’s something like The Godfather, I don’t necessarily have any new insights that generations of the most brilliant film theorists haven’t already said, but I’ll sloppily regurgitate what they’ve said, and why I love it so.  

When I pitched myself to write about It Happened One Night, one of my favorite (although it’s probably the tamest) pre-code movies, I immediately became overwhelmed with imposter syndrome.  How could I possibly write about a movie so influential that its formula is still being used today?  Look at any romantic comedy made in damn near a hundred years and it owes a debt of gratitude to this movie, with its tried and true man-and-woman-meet-cute-hate-each-other-then-fall-in-love dynamic.  

I had never seen it, until my wife introduced me to it.  We weren’t married yet; we were still dating at the time.  We had gone away for a weekend together and back at the hotel, they were showing it on TCM.  I knew it by reputation.  I knew Clark Gable was in it.  I knew about the “hiking up the skirt to show a little leg” gag, but I had never sat down and watched it.  She told me it was one of her favorites and talked me into watching it and I immediately loved it.  I mean, hell, what’s not to love?  Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert have this amazing chemistry together—and not just when they’re getting along, in love.  But when they hate each other, they have an almost proto-Ethel-and-Fred energy, firing off insults and comebacks with rapid precision.  Frank Capra’s direction is top-notch.  For a director with as many hits as he has under his belt, I don’t think he’s been in better form than he is here with It Happened One Night.  He’s so confident in his craft that he allows the actors to take center stage and make the script come alive.

And what a script it is.  Robert Riskin, who worked with Capra a number of times (also, husband to Fay Wray, of another pre-code favorite of mine, King Kong, which I’ll write about soon), imbues It Happened One Night with so much fun.  Maybe because the basic template of the film has been copied so many times, to varying degrees of success, but it feels so modern.  It’s inspired multiple remakes, but none in recent history.  If Hollywood ever dipped into that well, it wouldn’t take much work to rework it for modern audiences.  Throw in some smart phones, some lame references to social media, and bam, this thing writes itself.

Because I was so nervous about getting started on this, I even asked my wife, who introduced me to the movie, if she wanted to write this instead.  My wife is, by all accounts, a better writer than I am.  She started two new jobs in the same week, so that wasn’t happening.  I tried, though.  

So, what is it about It Happened One Night that shook me so?  I figured it was because of its longlasting legacy, a classic spanning decades, centuries, and beloved just as much today as it was in 1934, 88 years ago.  To be honest, I think it’s because what it is that makes the movie work is intangible.  It’s lightning in a bottle.  Something about it just worked.  It had that certain je ne sais quoi.  You could go on endlessly, as I already did, about the technical elements that made it work: The direction, the script, the performances.  But beyond that, all of those things just aligned perfectly.  The movie radiates this energy that’s infectious.  It’s so in love with the idea of making you smile, and it shows.  

Peter and Ellie (Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, respectively) both have an equal number of moments to upstage each other and win the audience over.  She, in showing how easy it is for a woman to hitch a ride by showing a little bit of leg, while he frantically brandishes his thumb to no avail.  He, in showing her how little she knows about this world, because she can’t do something as basic as dunk a donut in a cup of coffee without making a whole production of it.  

In the end, everything works out the way you expect it to.  They meet, they hate, they fall in love, something rips them apart, then they come back together just in time for the credits to roll.  Along the way, they have adventures, some laughs, and some real tender moments.  On paper, that sounds fine and dandy.  In execution, with all the elements working, and with a solid amount of sincerity in the making of it, it’s something else.  It’s magic.