It Happened One Night
1934 film by Frank Capra · Released February 22, 1934
It Happened One Night is a 1934 American screwball comedy film produced and directed by Frank Capra. Claudette Colbert stars as a pampered socialite who tries to get out from under her father's thumb and falls in love with a roguish reporter, played by Clark Gable. The screenplay by Robert Riskin is based on the August 1933 short story "Night Bus" by Samuel Hopkins Adams, which provided the shooting title. It is considered a "pre-Code" production, as it was released just four months before the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America began rigidly enforcing the Hays Code.
Cast ages at release (February 22, 1934)
- Clark Gable, as Peter Warne: 33
- Claudette Colbert, as Ellen "Ellie" Andrews: 30
- Walter Connolly, as Alexander Andrews: 46
- Alan Hale, as Danker: 42
- Roscoe Karns, as Oscar Shapeley: 42
- Jameson Thomas, as "King" Westley: 45
- Arthur Hoyt, as Zeke: 59
- Blanche Friderici, as Zeke's wife: 56
- Irving Bacon, as a gas station attendant: 40
- Wallis Clark, as Lovington: 51
- Ward Bond, as bus driver #1: 30
- Charles C. Wilson, as Joe Gordon: 39
- Dolores Fuller, as a child: 10
- George Breakston, as a boy bus passenger whose mother collapses: 14
- Claire McDowell, as the collapsed mother in the bus: 56
- Bess Flowers, as Agnes: 35
- Harry Holman, as the auto camp manager at the end of the film: 61
- Eddy Chandler, as bus driver #2: 39
- Ernie Adams, as the bag thief: 48