I'm a little screwy myself

It Happened One Night

(1934)

Chosen as birthday entertainment by a friend w/ whom I annually exchange birthday dinner-and-show. Fine by me: two of my 52 desert-island movies in a day. (Surely you wouldn't be so brutal as to limit me to fewer than 52 films on my desert island, would you?)

Last time I saw this I spent most of my time griping about the inept projection downtown. This time, let's say a word about the pic as a nearly perfect document of Depression-era American, without the expressions "Depression" or "hard times" or "Hooverville" or "bread line" or the like ever being uttered. Those who deride "Capra-corn" are ignorant fools in any case, but they can't possibly have seen this, can they? I'm an Illinoisan, and I know corn, and this ain't it.

Deservedly the first film (and still one of but three) to sweep the five top Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay (Robert Riskin), Best Actor (Clark Gable), and Best Actress (Claudette Colbert).