Telling the story of millionaire socialite Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert), who falls for a raffish newspaper reporter named Peter Warne (Clark Gable), Frank Capra’s screwball romantic comedy It Happened One Night was one of the most successful movies of the 1930s. Now considered one of the Golden Age of Hollywood’s greatest films, here are some stories from on and off set.
LEG WORK
In one of the film’s most famous scenes, Ellie lifts her skirt to reveal her leg, thereby attract a passing car, so that she and Peter can hitchhike back into town. Colbert initially balked at the scene, considering it “unladylike” to flash her leg, so a dancer was brought in as a body double to perform the skirt-lifting scene in her place. But when her double arrived on set, Colbert angrily exclaimed, “That is not my leg!” and went ahead with the scene herself.
THE BIG FIVE
It Happened One Night was the first film in cinema history to win the so-called “Big Five” Oscars. At the 7th Academy Awards in 1935, the film swept the board and took the awards for Best Picture, Best Director (for Capra), Best Actor (Gable), Best Actress (Colbert), and Best Screenplay (or, as it was known in this instance, Best Adaptation). This feat has only been repeated twice more in Oscar history—with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1976 and The Silence of the Lambs in 1992—although over the years more than 40 films have received nominations in all the Big Five categories.
THE GIFT OF THE GABLE
Although he was nominated for Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and Gone With the Wind (1939), Clark Gable’s Oscar for It Happened One Night was the only one of his career. Nevertheless, shortly after receiving it, Gable reportedly gave the statuette to a child whom he noticed admiring it and told the boy that it was winning the award that mattered, not owning it. After Gable’s death in 1960, the boy’s family returned the Oscar to Gable’s son who later put it up for auction. The award was purchased by an anonymous bidder for more than $600,000 and returned to the Academy, where it remains on display to this day; the winning bidder was later revealed to be Steven Spielberg.
GONE WITH THE WIN!
Claudette Colbert—who supposedly only accepted her role in the movie because Capra agreed to double her salary and cut her filming schedule down to four weeks! —wasn’t a fan of It Happened One Night. She complained every day throughout filming, and when the production wrapped, she told a friend, “I just finished making the worst picture I’ve ever made.” Perhaps for that reason (and because she presumed she would lose the award to fellow nominee Bette Davis), Colbert had no intention of showing up at the Oscars. So, when news broke that she had won, yet was nowhere to be seen at the ceremony, the producers tracked her down and had her driven back to the ceremony to accept the award in person. Colbert had been about to leave Los Angeles for a holiday when she was contacted and ended up accepting her Academy Award in her traveling suit.
A TURN DOWN FOR THE BOOKS
Despite its critical and commercial success, Colbert wasn’t the only person unimpressed by the movie. Before she was hired, Capra had offered the role of Ellie Andrews to the likes of Miriam Hopkins, Loretta Young, Margaret Sullivan, and Myrna Loy, all of whom had turned it down. Gable’s role, meanwhile, was initially sent to two-time Oscar nominee Robert Montgomery—who also turned it down, claiming that it was the worst thing he had ever read.