Cinema St. Louis Hosting an Online Screening of IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT May 19th

Join Cinema St. Louis for their free online movie club! Since we can’t watch a film together on the big screen, Cinema St. Louis invites you to come together to share our love of cinema from the comfort of your own home. Every other week Cinema St. Louis will select a film available on a streaming service and host the discussion on Facebook.

Cinema St. Louis will be hosting an Online Screening of IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT this Monday (May 19th) at 7:30pm(CT). Diane Carson, Ph.D., professor emerita, and reviewer of films for more than 25 years, covering Cannes, Telluride, Toronto, Palm Springs, and Sundance festivals, will be talking about the film on Facebook Live. For more details go to the Facebook invite HERE

IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT concerns an heiress, Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) who runs away from her father to join her new husband, society aviator King Westley (Jameson Thomas). On the bus, she meets a reporter named Peter Warne (Clark Gable) who is down on his luck. The strike a bargain: Peter can have an exclusive on Ellie’s story if he’ll help her get to New York. After 80 years, the charm of IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT still holds up in part because Capra throws in some cool period Americana detail; scenes take place at depression-era rest stops, trailer parks, and on highways. Though many actors turned down the lead roles, the combination of Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert is perfect. Gable is an appropriately gruff know-it-all with plenty of sex appeal while Colbert is beautiful, spoiled and uppity.  And even peripheral fans of the film have heard that when Gable undressed and was wearing no undershirt, sales of undershirts plummeted. Perhaps a little less well known is that Gable’s standing by a fence talking with a carrot in his mouth is allegedly the inspiration for Bugs Bunny. The most famous scene, of course, is Gable demonstrating how to hitch a ride and failing and Colbert lifting her skirt to get one immediately. Hot stuff back in ’34! The supporting cast includes Walter Connolly as Ellie’s father, Roscoe Karns, Alan Hale and Ward Bond.