‘It Happened One Night’ is the Template for All Great Rom-Coms

I have a snobbish side when it comes to rom-coms and I blame it on It Happened One Night. Ever since I stumbled upon Frank Capra‘s Oscar-winning 1934 film as a teen, I’ve held it up as the standard other romantic comedies should be chasing. The script is sharp, the chemistry between leads Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert intense, and the story full of tropes that would be studied, copied, and refined by all of my favorite romances to come. 

It Happened One Night is a special film. It’s the first of only three films to ever sweep all five major Oscars: Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Actress. But even more importantly, it serves — in my mind, at least — as the template for all great rom-coms that would follow. It is a genre-defining classic that still crackles with sensuality nearly a century later. 

If you’re going to cozy up to any rom-coms this Valentine’s Day, you need to pay your respect to the ultimate ur-text of the genre. 

It Happened One Night tells the story of Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert), a Depression-era heiress who marries a gold-digging pilot to piss off her dad. Her father attempts to keep Ellie away from her new love by locking her aboard a ship in Florida, but she manages to escape by literally jumping overboard. Ellie then boards an overnight bus to New York City, where she’s stuck sharing a seat with Peter Warne (Clark Gable). 

When Peter recognizes Ellie as a runaway heiress making front-page news, he offers to help her in exchange for giving him an exclusive tell-all about her journey. If she refuses, he can call her dad and claim the reward that’s been put out for his return. It’s one of those classic set-ups that lends itself to the enemies to lovers trope. Peter and Ellie think they loathe each other, but their bickering is full of playful flirtation. Their journey pushes them closer together. Eventually, they fall for each other. 

What makes It Happened One Night so good and so foundational is how it balances the nuts and bolts of great filmmaking with the intangible. Robert Riskin’s screenplay is a technical marvel, cleanly plotted and full of clever lines of dialogue. You can examine the script, the costuming, the editing, and see a high level of craft. More importantly, though, you can just watch Gable and Colbert and feel the yearning. The best romances work only because of an ineffable energy bouncing between two performers. A magical force we call “chemistry.”

Once you see It Happened One Night, it’s hard not to see its influence on the rom-com genre as a whole. Every time you watch a rom-com where a reporter fudges the truth a little to get closer to a scoop, you’re seeing Peter Warne. Each spoiled prince or princess who falls for a pauper against their better judgement can be traced to Ellie Andrews. The road trip rom-com? A take on It Happened One Night. A hitchhiking scene? It Happened One Night. A random line of dialogue that transports you right smack into a happy ending? Do the “walls of Jericho” mean nothing to you?!?!

It Happened One Night is a cinematic masterpiece that gets too often forgotten by modern rom-com lovers. It’s a film that is chic and sexy, gritty and glamorous, but most of all, romantic. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert are electrifying to watch, exhilarating to root for, and impossible to forget. It Happened One Night is, in my humble opinion, the keystone of the rom-com genre. It’s the film that defines the genre as a whole.