A great perk to living in Chicago is that they've started doing an outdoor film festival a few years back and best of all it's free to the public! Technically not a movie pass but still free and involving a movie hence the entry.
They show 7 movies, one every tuesday night starting around the 2nd or 3rd tuesday in july and they're usually some old classic.....and to help it along they usually have a short film by some chicago area film student and last year they had cartoon works of Chuck Jones to memorialize him. Of course it helped that I had found out about the festival after only missing the first one (some like it hot) which i had seen almost in it's entirety anyway. So off i went to see dr. strangelove, a hard day's night and carmen jones. Then surgery struck so i couldn't see horse feathers but i was able to rent it later and vertigo and west side story i had already seen so i didn't feel too bad about missing those movies.
This is their 4th one and i haven't seen a single one of the films they've got planned....i'm so excited!!!!
So the first one was It happened one night with clark gable and claudette corbert and i adored it!!!! Clark Gable is charming and charismatic....he's kind but doesn't take any cr@p....*dreamy sigh* The only film I had ever seen Clark Gable in was (naturally) gone with the wind and he's very strong and forceful there too but the jockularity isn't played up quite as much. In "It happened one night", clark gable is much more relaxed and funny....he doesn't mind laughing at himself a little bit but with one quick facial expression can make you feel the few tatters of pride that he tries to cling to when situations become difficult for his character.
The story is very well told with the characters fully developed with lots of moments of interaction so that the audience can see why the two end up falling in love with each other. They even have the all-important "inside joke" involving Jericho and a trumpet between the two that makes you smile in the end for being "in on it". The supporting cast of characters are great with the father being quite eccentric but truly loving towards his daughter and the fellow bus passenger that hits on Claudette Corbert's character....clark gable naturally saves her but makes it seem like it was outta self-interest...you half expect him to turn to the camera and wink he's so charming!
Some of the dialogue is naturally fairly trite and predictable....the movie was made in 1934.....and some of the phrases and idioms used just makes you crack up because they are so dated. Not to mention being able to predict some of the things that happen (example: hitchhiker scene) but I found that I was able to overlook the parts for the sake of the whole and was throughly enchanted with the movie.
When I learned that for the first year of the oscars this movie won in all the categories....well....that just cemented it for me! This movie won because it was well written and well acted....likable characters with true sincerity and a fairly believable scenerio where you root for the guy to get the girl.
Not to mention the fact that I have a bigger appreciation for clark gable and that i'm starting to see why he was so famous and popular! Now all I gotta do is find a copy of DVD....this is definitely a classic I think is worth having in a DVD collection even if it is kind of an older movie. Any true film buff will want to have it I'm sure!
