It Happened One Night - Oh Yeah...

Quick Thoughts: It Happened One Night (1934)

A reporter clashes with a girl one the run.

One of my favourite examples of an early silent film that proves the validity of this new cinema with its pace, rhythm and writing. The depiction of two personalities clashing in this film is familiar but crystalline; the direction and imperative use of sound and silence throughout allows for an agile movement between intimacy and rampant silliness. The comedy has a brutality to it one would not find common in the modern day, yet it is prescient and captivating; an uncynical venture toward unwanted love. Dripping with swag and class, Gable and Colbert draw a humorous image of love as a battle mediated by honesty in which a most gripping truth is one of attraction. I then appreciate the circular nature of this narrative that sees both Gable and Colbert run from obligation and toward aspiration, only to realise that their aspirations are in their obligations: the girl a boy to rival her father and make her a woman, the boy a girl to serve and become a gentleman for. This basic complication is illuminated by their conflictual romance; a call to a greater story. You can't have class without a slice of indelicacy in life; it is summoned by your arrogant heroism in face of your attractions.