I need to touch base with great movies more often. It'd been far too long since I'd last watched 1934's It Happened One Night. What an exceptionally smooth piece of filmmaking.
There's not a superfluous moment, every scene seems to perfectly flow into the next. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert are both so brilliant. It really feels more like Gable's film, though, as it's basically a story about his character taking the reins on her life and her learning to like it. The spoiled rich girl has to learn a thing or two from the streetwise working man. There's a perfect recipe for a movie made during The Great Depression.
The only time she gets the upper hand is when she shows some leg to get a ride when they're hitchhiking. It's not politically correct in terms of the power balance between man and woman but I've certainly met plenty of rich doofuses like Colbert's character, both male and female. Colbert's saving grace is that she's gorgeous and, it turns out, has a savvy instinct towards humility, despite what Gable's character says in his angrier moments.
I don't know if I'd want to be in a relationship like theirs. It's cute watching them argue because they're both attractive and the screenplay is so perfect. But in real life, bickering couples tend to just be noise pollution.
It Happened One Night is available on The Criterion Channel.
X Sonnet 1922
Another sharp response has lit the chair.
The frozen Valentine was paper goo.
'Tis not a card that any cats repair.
As lightning strikes the oak, they're turning blue.
The water elves were living deep below.
They thought it funny humans want to walk.
And lure the oysters up above the show.
You see, their swimming life was only talk.
A counterfeit of glee has clamped their heart.
As manic troupes devour life itself.
With smug derision, killers tear apart
And twisted roots displayed upon the shelf.
An empty glass would serve as hollow world.
To cringe, the fortune fish has slowly curled.
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