#08 – Quit Bawlin’!
It Happened One Night, 1934
One word. CHEMISTRY. Sure, the movies sizzled before this, but did they have the sort of white-hot, toe-curling chemistry that Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert have? Arguably, no. In this scene, the spoiled heiress and hard-boiled reporter improvise a narrow-escape from some noseying detectives. Sure, Colbert’s hitchiking episode is more famous, but it is this moment midway through the film when the genre “romantic comedy” is acutally born. Watch it happen:
The Kitty Packard Pictorial 
Ah, yes. This film is sheer comic brilliance. Clark Gable impressed and surprised me. Come to think of it, the quality of the movie surprised me. I was very pleased.
Have you noticed the (intentional, I think) similarities between its ending and Spaceballs’?