FILM: It Happened One Evening

I do not advocate smoking, but I feel strongly about hats.

Claudette Colbert & Clark Gable
Sometimes you share things you're excited about with people, and your recommendation falls flat and your enthusiasm diminishes a bit - 

So we decided to spend our summer evening, pre-bedtime, watching a spot of cinema, and it just felt like the right time to pull out one of my old favourites. The 1934 road trip romance IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in the film that kickstarted, for better or worse, a billion romantic comedies since. The very definition of simple plot: spoiled socialite rich girl trying to make her way across the states into lover's arms before Daddy's long arm can find her; smug arrogant and self-serving newspaperman teaming up to help her in her cross-country flight so he can get the scoop of his career. 

If you get chills thinking of Katherine Hepburn's whip crack wisecracks in African Queen; if you chuckle at the repartee of Downton Abbey where the insults fly fast and furious and smart; if you like movies with rain and romance and crackling with sexual tension and humor and everyone wearing hats and smoking indoors; if you appreciate dialogue-heavy flicks mixed with travel and adventure and an insight into popular culture and media 80 years ago (pre-Kardashian ...then you just might enjoy Frank Capra's classic, if it's flown under your radar up until now.


- and the wonderful thing is to hear the sounds of shared appreciation: our children, giggling at the rat-a-tat retorts and banter and glimpse into an era far before their time. 

It's a great feeling, to have people you love love something you love.

So I said: "Okay, one more scene."
The scene finished, I clicked Stop, and my son laid his head down and went to sleep in my lap. Bam. 

That's how to end a long day.

Hope yours has wrapped up nicely, world.

It Happened One Night (1934)