A spoiled heiress, running away from both her family and her wedding, is helped by a man who's really a reporter looking for a good story. But then he starts to fall in love...
Reviews
Empire Magazine
David Parkinson
“The film became the first to land the Big Five awards at the Oscars. But, more importantly, this fresh, fast and funny farce ushered in the screwball comedy, which remains its lasting legacy.”
01/11/2010
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The Guardian
Peter Bradshaw
“As buoyant and elegant as bubbles in a glass of champagne, Frank Capra's sublime 1934 comedy, written by long-time collaborator Robert Riskin, survives triumphantly because of its wit, charm, romantic idealism and its shrewd sketch of married life.”
28/10/2010
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The Observer
Philip French
“Capra's greatest film...”
31/10/2010
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Total Film
Neil Smith
“Tame by today’s standards, it’s worth remembering just how shocking a glimpse of Colbert’s car-halting stocking would have been in Depression-era America.”
26/10/2010
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Variety
Variety Staff
“One of those stories that without a particularly strong plot manages to come through in a big way, due to the acting, dialog, situations and direction. In other words, the story has that intangible quality of charm which arises from a smooth blending of the various ingredients. Difficult to analyze, impossible to designedly reproduce. Just a happy accident.”
26/02/2010
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The Daily Telegraph
Sukhdev Sandhu
“It’s scarcely believable that Capra’s film is nearly eighty years old. Colbert is headstrong, delightful, irresistible. Gable is edgier, less mannered than he would later become. The dialogue — with its running gag about the walls of Jericho — is always sharp. The scene in which Warne carries Ellen across a stream by moonlight is gorgeously romantic.”
28/10/2010
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Time Out
David Jenkins
“Every line of dialogue is calculated bliss, the chemistry between the leads is magnificent, and the backdrop of Depression-era America allows for a prescient and amusing subplot about how well-heeled urbanites are compelled to misbehave when they have no money in their designer pockets. It’s probably more historically important than it is a masterpiece...”
28/10/2010
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The New York Times
Mordaunt Hall
“"It Happened One Night" is a good piece of fiction, which, with all its feverish stunts, is blessed with bright dialogue and a good quota of relatively restrained scenes. Although there are such flighty notions as that of having Ellie running away from a marriage ceremony when the guests—and particularly King Westley—had expected to hear her say "I will"; or those depicting Warne volleying vituperation over the telephone at his city editor; there are also more sober sequences wherein Warne and Ellie spread cheer to the audience, notwithstanding their sorry adventures with little or no money.”
23/02/2010
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