It happened in one night

Movie
German title	It happened in one night
Original title	It happened one night
Country of production	USA
original language	English
Publishing year	1934
length	105 minutes
Age rating	FSK o. A.
Rod
Director	Frank Capra
script	Robert Riskin
production	Frank Capra for ; Columbia Pictures
music	Frank Churchill , ; Louis Silvers
camera	Joseph Walker
cut	Gene Havlick
occupation
	Clark Gable : Peter Warne; Claudette Colbert : Ellen "Ellie" Andrews; Walter Connolly : Alexander Andrews; Roscoe Karns : Oscar Shapeley; Jameson Thomas : King Westley; Alan Hale : Thank you, drivers; Charles C. Wilson : Joe Gordon; Arthur Hoyt : Zeke, motel owner; Blanche Friderici : Zeke's wife; Bess Flowers : Agnes, Joe's secretary;
synchronization

It happened in one night (Original title: It Happened One Night ) is an American screwball comedy directed by Frank Capra from 1934. The script was based on the short story Night Bus by Samuel Hopkins Adams . With this production, a film won Oscars for the first time in the five most important categories.

action

The banker's daughter Ellie Andrews is in a dispute with her very rich father, who wants to dissolve her recently married man, King Westley. Mr. Andrews locks Ellen up on his yacht in Florida , but she escapes and now wants to take a bus to King Westley's in New York City . On the way she meets the unemployed newspaper reporter Peter Warne, who recognizes Ellen and immediately senses the chance to use the new acquaintance for his professional purposes. Ellie, who is left with no money or clothes after a theft, agrees to exclusively give Peter an ongoing report of her escape if he helps her escape to New York. While traveling on the bus with ordinary people, Ellie also learns about the distress in the Great Depression .

Ellen's father is now trying to track down his daughter with the help of private detectives, newspaper ads and cash rewards. When Oscar Shapeley, a harassing bus traveler, recognizes Ellen and wants to reap the reward, she and Peter continue to hitchhike. Ellen uses her attractive legs to make the drivers stop. A driver tries to steal Ellen's suitcase, but Peter stops him and takes the thief's car. After an initial dislike, Ellen and Peter get closer and closer to each other. Shortly before the end of the trip, Ellie confesses her love to Peter, who initially hesitates due to her marriage to Westley. The following night, however, he goes to New York to make arrangements for a future together. When Ellie notices that Peter has disappeared, she assumes he has left her and returns to her now relentless father. Together with him she plans the church wedding with Westley.

However, both Ellie and Peter cannot forget each other. When Peter appears at Mr. Andrews's on the wedding day, the latter offers him the reward for his daughter in the amount of 10,000 US dollars - Peter does not want this and only demands 39.60 dollars, which Ellen still owes him from the trip. Mr. Andrews is impressed by the lack of interest in the reward and ensures that Ellen can escape from the wedding ceremony to see Peter. Her father pays Westley a severance payment and has the marriage annulled after all, so that Ellie and Peter can finally get married.

background

The cast problems for the film were legendary. The female lead was turned down by Margaret Sullavan , Constance Bennett , Miriam Hopkins and Carole Lombard . Allegedly, attempts were also made to win over young Bette Davis . Claudette Colbert only accepted the role because she was guaranteed double her usual salary at Paramount and a maximum of four weeks of shooting. It was just as difficult to fill the male part. Robert Montgomery , the first choice, declined with thanks. Allegedly, Clark Gable is said to have been personally forced by Louis B. Mayer to accept the role. This was rumored to punish Gable for his rebellious behavior at MGM .

The film brought the biggest career boost, however, to Claudette Colbert, who had previously appeared at Paramount as an actress in the dramatic fate of women. Together with her other hit of the year, Imitation of Life , which she shot for Universal, she quickly rose to become one of the top female stars in Hollywood. The following films such as She Married Her Boss , Senior Physician Dr. Monet , for whom Colbert received another nomination for Best Actress, and The Gilded Lily consolidated their status.

Aftermath

Frank Capra's film is considered to be the first outstanding and style-defining example of screwball comedy of the 1930s and 1940s. He impresses with his high speed and his witty and pointed exchange of words, but not least because of the male and female protagonists who meet at eye level, an element that is of particular importance for the genre of screwball film comedies.

According to previously unpublished information from Looney Tunes cartoonist Friz Freleng , the character elements of the cartoon character Bugs Bunny can be traced back to influences from this film: on the one hand, to the role played by Oscar Shapeley; on the other hand, Clark Gable in It Happened in One Night has provided the model for the way in which the most famous cartoon bunny eats carrots .

synchronization

The German premiere took place on October 15, 1935 in Berlin, where it was initially only shown with subtitles . In the end, the film was so successful that a German dubbed version was produced, which was used from the beginning of December. Siegfried Schürenberg spoke for Clark Gable, while Til Klokow gave her voice to Claudette Colbert. This version was rediscovered a few years ago and presented in the Zeughauskino of the German Historical Museum in Berlin. In 1979, Bavaria Film produced a new dubbed version for television broadcast .

role	actor	Voice actor 1935	Voice actor 1979
Peter Warne	Clark Gable	Siegfried Schürenberg	Norbert Langer
Ellie Andrews	Claudette Colbert	Til Klokow	Renate Küster
Alexander Andrews	Walter Connolly	Alfred Haase	Alf Marholm
Oscar Shapeley	Roscoe Karns	Bruno Fritz	Manfred Schott
Thank you, stealing driver	Alan Hale Sr.	Paul Klinger	Wolfgang Hess
King Westley	Jameson Thomas	Herbert Gernot
Joe Gordon, editor-in-chief	Charles C. Wilson	Hanns Eggerth
Agnes, Gordon's secretary	Bess Flowers	Lilli Schoenborn
bus driver	Ward Bond	Erich Dunskus
Gatekeeper	Harry Todd	Erich Dunskus
Newspaper reporter	Hal Price		Erich Ebert

Reviews

In the New York Times in 1934, Mordaunt Hall wrote that It Happened In One Night was a good feature film, blessed with feverish stunts, brilliant dialogue, and a balanced number of relatively subdued scenes. The industry journal Variety stated that "the story [...] has the non-specifically determinable charm", "which arises from a balanced mixture of different ingredients". The film is "difficult to analyze, impossible [...] to reproduce" and "just a happy coincidence".

The lexicon of international films judged: "Shiny played and staged, the refreshing Hollywood comedy, interspersed with socially critical irony, is still excellent entertaining today." Cinema also describes Capra's film as "still an enchanting comedy". This is a "masterpiece with timelessly witty dialogues".

The day after the German premiere, the Film-Kurier headlined: “Triumph of American comedy technology”. Joseph Goebbels was of the opinion that one could learn a lot from this film; In comparison, German comedies such as light cavalry are often unnatural and “boring to die for” (Diary October 17, 1935).

In fact, however, Hollywood had learned from Germany - namely from Ernst Lubitsch , as Friedrich Porges emphasized in his criticism of January 19, 1936 in Der Wiener Tag : “It is again a graceful, witty comedy carried by a humor of deeper meaning that Hollywood [ …] As a welcome present to all those who have long since become enthusiastic supporters of this type of import from America. Of the directors working in Europe at the time, Lubitsch was the only one who was able to create such fragrant film plays, and he originally introduced the style for this in California. Since then, these delicious films have been made repeatedly, the appeal of which does not come from the staging alone, but above all from the manner in which they are played by accomplished artists, with a matter of course that even the slightest trace of professional 'comedy play' blurred. [...] The director Frank Capra learned a lot from Lubitsch, but also added some of his own and applied it to a film that has to appeal to everyone! "

Awards

It Happened One Night , in 1935, was the first film to win Oscars in the five major categories, the Big Five - Best Picture , Best Director , Best Screenplay , Best Actor (Clark Gable), and Best Actress (Claudette Colbert). Since then, only One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and Das Schweigen der Lämmer (1991) have succeeded. As early as 1934, the film won the National Board of Review award in the Best Film category and was nominated for Best Film for the Coppa Mussolini, the main prize at the Venice Film Festival.

In 1993, It Happened One Night was listed on the National Film Registry . The American Film Institute selected the film from several lists in 1998 and 2007: List of the 100 best American films of all time (1998 edition: 35th place; 2007 edition: 46th place), List of the 100 funniest American comedies of all time (8th place) and List of 100 Best American Love Movies of All Time (# 38).

literature

Victor Scherle, William Turner Levy: The Complete Films of Frank Capra . Citadel Press, New York / Secaucus 1992, ISBN 0-8065-1296-2 .
Hans-Jürgen Kubiak: The Oscar Films. The best films from 1927/28 to 2004. The best non-English language films from 1947 to 2004. The best animated films from 2001 to 2004 . Schüren, Marburg 2005, ISBN 3-89472-386-6 .