1934
#65
Starring:
Clarke Gable
Clarke Gable
Claudette Colbert
Directed By:
Frank Capra
1934 Academy Awards
Winner:
Outstanding Picture
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Director
Best Adapted Screenplay (or Best Writing, Adaptation)
The Barretts Of Wimpole Street
Cleopatra
Flirtation Walk
The Gay Divorcee
Here Comes The Navy
The House Of Rothchild
Imitation Of Life
One Night Of Love
The Thin Man
Viva Villa!
The White Parade
The classic rom-com. I dare say one of the best, even 79 years later. Gable and Colbert are wonderful with each other, though Gable clearly steals every scene. You can see here why years later they'd want him for Rhett Butler. Some of the looks he gives Colbert speak so much without word, you can almost hear what he is thinking.
This isn't one of the movies on the list that I'd ever seen before, but so many people know of it for one little scene - Gable's Peter Warne and Colbert's Ellen Andrews are trying to hitchhike on the road after running away from the Greyhound bus they had been on because the investigators her father had hired to find her would be closing in on them soon. He tries to seem like he knows all about hitchhiking, telling her there are different types of sticking your thumb out and they all say different things about you. But try as he might, all of the passing cars just go right by them...so she gives it a try.
Along comes a car and she...hikes up her skirt.
Very racy for 79 years ago!
Of course you know it works too!
And it's such a classic that's so many others have used it or a take on it.
This was the first movie to win the "Big 5" Academy Awards - Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, and Writing (Adaptation)
Interesting to note that this won against the movie version of The Gay Divorcee, a Rogers/Astaire picture that is just as well known for it's Cole Porter, "Night and Day" song and dance number.
.
Its also refreshing to see a rom-com that, since it's from 79 years ago, when thoughts on sex and sex scenes in movies were a LOT different, that we have a couple thrown together who sleep in separate beds and don't get together until the end of the movie - after they are married! A bit "old fashioned" I know, but proof a good story doesn't always need to go there. Such things are almost a crutch in the movies of today, that are so unsure they have a good story, they feel they need to throw skin shots into the film or no one will like it.
