Brennan 0:00
You’re listening to Dodge Movie Podcast. Your hosts are Christi and Mike Dodge the founders of Dodge Media Productions. We produce films and podcasts. So this is a podcast about films. Join them as they share their passion for filmmaking.

Christi Dodge 0:18
Alright, welcome back everybody to this episode of The Dodge Movie Podcast. It is Episode 58 and we are going to be talking about It Happened One Night. The director is Frank Capra stars Clark Gable Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns and Jameson Thomas.

Mike Dodge 0:37
Any relation to Stephen Colbert?

Christi Dodge 0:39
I meant to look that up because it’s spelled the same.

Mike Dodge 0:42
That’s extra credit for the listeners.

Christi Dodge 0:44
Yeah, there you go. Show Notes. Where’s my pen?

Mike Dodge 0:47
I wasn’t kidding. listeners can do it. Send it in to us.

Christi Dodge 0:50
Send it-yeah, you do some crowdsourcing, I’ve been studying all day. It was written by Robert Riskin. And it was a Columbia Pictures production, which I didn’t know this at the time, but they were considered Poverty Row. MGM and Warner Brothers were kind of like the big dogs in Hollywood and they would lend out actors to Columbia because they couldn’t afford I guess to have, like on contract. Actors were like contracted with-

Mike Dodge 1:18
Contracted players.

Christi Dodge 1:18
-yeah, a certain studio and they would just do movies for that studio. But every once in a while they would lend them out to other studios. Little history there. This synopsis of It Happened One Night is a renegade reporter trailing a young runaway heiress for a big story joins her on a bus heading from Florida to New York. And they end up stuck with each other when the bus leaves them behind at one of the stops. That’s an interesting synopsis. Because-

Mike Dodge 1:18
Right, sounds a little stocky.

Christi Dodge 1:19
The bus does not leave them behind. She thought that the bus would wait for her and the bus is like no, we have to stay on a time schedule.

Mike Dodge 1:54
Yeah, that’s an interesting perspective. That’s from her point of view. She was left behind. The bus driver says no, you didn’t show up. You ditched me.

Christi Dodge 2:03
As I read it, I was like, wait a second. It Happened One Night made history because in 1934 when it came out, and it’s possible that maybe it was ’35 that this happened, but it made what they call a clean sweep. So it won the top five Academy Awards, which had never been done. It won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay. That did not happen again for another, like 40 years when it happened to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. And then later in ’91. It happened with Silence of the Lambs. So that’s amazing in Hollywood history, that that’s only happened three times.

Mike Dodge 2:41
And I would have said it wouldn’t happen again. But Silence of the Lambs says it is possible.

Christi Dodge 2:46
Right.

Mike Dodge 2:47
But it seems highly unlikely.

Christi Dodge 2:48
I agree. I agree. I think people would call that boring. If that were to happen today. They would just get annoyed that one film swept everything.

Mike Dodge 2:58
Is Second Story eligible this year?

Christi Dodge 3:00
No, no, because we did not play in three theaters in Los Angeles.

Mike Dodge 3:05
Okay, I’ll have to work on another film, then.

Christi Dodge 3:07
Yep. So I want to take this time right now to kind of give a little bit of a history lesson. I’m going to try to keep it brief. And we talked about this with I think it was it was either My Darling Clementine or High Noon, I mentioned that It Happened One Night didn’t have a letter rating like we’re used to today had it passed. Or then the opposite could have been it didn’t pass. And so I did a deep dive on Wiki. And I’ll include that in the show notes the link to the Wiki page, or you can just look up the Hays Code and find it yourself, but movies didn’t have ratings. Even before this.

Hollywood was getting a reputation for being immoral because stories are being portrayed that was causing some concern with conservatives. And then a few-there was like a gambling scandal with baseball in the 20s. And then in 1921, an actor named Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was accused of raping Virginia Rapp, and she later died. And so people were getting really concerned that Hollywood was this immoral place. And when was prohibition, so this is kind of happening right around then too, right?

Mike Dodge 4:17
Yeah, that would have been about the same time, I think.

Christi Dodge 4:19
Yeah. So there was a lot in our culture in our society, a look on the demoralization kind of of things. And so they felt like they needed to rein it in. So this Presbyterian Elder named Will Hays kind of took it upon himself. He was the Postmaster General, under Harding, and he decided “I know what we need. We need a production code, we need a set of standards that people will abide by when they’re making their movies.” And so in 1925, he elected himself the president of the Motion Pictures, Producers and Distributors of America.

And in 1924, they recommended what they called the “formula,” and it was kind of like a bunch of do’s and don’ts. And then people were, you know, kind of-kind of abided by it, but kind of didn’t. And so in 1927, he said, “Hey, you studio heads, why don’t you guys create a group?” And, he asked, the studio has to create a bunch of “don’ts” and the “Be carefuls,” they call it. In the Wiki article, they’re listed, and it’s kind of comical. You know, it’s “none of this. None of that, no rape. No, you know, yeah, white slavery.” I thought that was interesting. What about Black slavery?

Mike Dodge 4:20
Oh, totally okay at the time.

Christi Dodge 4:25
Yeah not okay. So they had this list of things. And it was really kind of on the Honor Code, you did it or you didn’t, and there was really no, I mean, it was societal pressure to stand-to abide by it, but really no federal oversight or anything like that. So then now we come to the ’30s. And there was a lot of people calling for censorship, which, of course, the studios in the movie makers were like, “No, you can’t censor us. That’s not cool.” And the Supreme Court agreed, because somebody filed a lawsuit.

And they were like, “Nope, that’s free speech, you can’t do that.” So then in ’34, there was the creation of the Production Code Administration, or the PCA, and it required films to receive a certification. And most of the studios adopted that and abided by it. And then in ’45, was the creation of the Motion Picture Administration of America or the MPAA, which later became an MPA that we know today. And that’s when we, they introduced the letter grades like G for general audiences, and PG for parental guidance, and so on. And so it wasn’t so much that your film was allowed to be shown or not, but it got that rating, and then audiences could make their own decision.

Mike Dodge 6:50
So those of you who are unfamiliar with that, I recommend a documentary that I think is called This Movie Is Not Yet Rated. And I’ll give you the synopsis is the MPAA rating system is a load of hooey.

Christi Dodge 7:05
Well, and as I was doing this research, it always was a load of hooey. It was always conservative priests, Catholic priests, and politicians who were imposing their beliefs on what was good morals and not good morals. It wasn’t like it was democratized at all. There’s a lot of anti-semitism that was allowed, like there were things that are really bad that were still allowed. While-

Mike Dodge 7:30
Good thing that government officials of questionable intelligence aren’t overstepping their bounds nowadays.

Christi Dodge 7:35
Right?

Mike Dodge 7:36
Oh, wait.

Christi Dodge 7:36
So, with that history in mind Mike’s right, that documentary-we should watch it again, because it’s been a while since we’ve seen it, although I just make us mad.

Mike Dodge 7:44
Right.

Christi Dodge 7:45
But it is really fascinating to see. And I think that that colored how audiences view it. Because if you think it’s a G movie versus a PG movie, versus a NC-17 movie that does color your thoughts of it as a parent of young children-

Mike Dodge 8:02
Right. So it’s predicated on this theory that the MPAA reviewers have watched the film, which is a thing that the parent hadn’t done, and is able to give them the review. However, not only does that documentary show how ridiculous and just flat-out stupid that system is. But in the era of the internet, it’s incredibly obsolete, like buggy whip obsolete.

And I don’t actually agree with their ratings. But there’s a website Kids in Mind, that exists to tell the parents who used to look at the ratings, more detail about what’s in the film. So instead of saying, “it’s good,” or “it’s bad,” this website tells you okay, there’s a scene of people with their clothes off bathing, which was literally what they said about Brother Bear. And that’s not true. You see two cartoon dudes with their shirts off in the river.

Christi Dodge 8:55
Right.

Mike Dodge 8:55
And that’s not nudity. But my point is, people who are concerned can get access to that kind of information. Or, of course, the greatest web site of all time Does the Dog Die, which tells you a critically important piece of information about deciding go see a film. The reason I like those things better, even if I don’t agree with Kids in Mind, and I do agree with Does the Dog Die is that it lets people make their own decision. It’s not saying this is approved for people under the age of 13.

Who knows that’s for the parent to make that decision. Right? So that whole system is ridiculous. But that was an era right before that information was available to the average consumer.

Christi Dodge 9:37
Yeah, and if you guys know of any other websites like that, because like for example, our youngest, I think was turning seven or eight. And we took a he wanted to go see Transformers that was the first Transformers that came out. So he invited his buddy and his buddy was an only child and didn’t have a lot of familiarity with like a big action movie like that. And It was tough on him to be. And I felt bad. And we ended up, I took, you know, I felt bad for the poor guy.

So I said, “Hey, you want to-let’s go.” Because I could just tell he was really uncomfortable and overwhelmed. Our youngest had been through that, because he had been through movies like that with his brother. And so to him, Transformers was exciting and cool. So every parent needs to make that decision for their own kid, can my kid handle this stuff? So I think anytime that there is almost like a listener base, or audience based reviews, that works better than some, quote unquote, governing body, right, that has their definition of what is acceptable and not acceptable.

Mike Dodge 10:38
I’ll give the counter example from my own life when I was eight or nine, they showed Old Yeller at school-

Christi Dodge 10:44
Right.

Mike Dodge 10:45
-and it traumatized me.

Christi Dodge 10:46
Yeah.

Mike Dodge 10:46
And it was a G rated film.

Christi Dodge 10:48
Right, exactly.

Mike Dodge 10:49
I think that that code is ridiculous. I think the Hays Code is actually probably less damaging, because it’s more silly, in a sense, it tries not to make the value judgment that is inherent in those ratings. So in this documentary that we talked about, they talked about, at a certain point in Hollywood, this was a big deal about whether your film was rated PG, PG, 13, or R that could affect its revenue, right?

Christi Dodge 11:14
Exactly.

Mike Dodge 11:14
Who can see it. So that was a big deal. And you were fighting with this group of people and whatever, but it’s just, I think it’s better to go to these other ratings that are based on the actual review of the film. And like you said, let people make the decision and appropriately for their individual,

Christi Dodge 11:31
Right, which I have seen on Facebook, different people. I try to post when we go see a movie, and that’s kind of my call out. Hey, if you want to know what this movies about asked me and a number of people have. “Did you like it?” “Did you not like it,” you know, “was it sad?” And and I think we need to do that so that people get actual, you know, accurate information about what’s in the movie. Alright, we’ll get off our soapbox now. All right, Mike, kick us off. What’s the pickup line for this film,

Mike Dodge 12:00
“Hunger strike, eh?”

Christi Dodge 12:02
And I purposely asked Mike to do it in that accent because as we were watching this movie, we got talking about that stereotypical old timey quick, you know? announcer voice that is in so many movies of this era.

Mike Dodge 12:17
“When a cold mama gets hot, boy does she sizzle!”

Christi Dodge 12:20
Right.

Mike Dodge 12:22
Right?

Christi Dodge 12:22
Mike loves talking-you know how there’s Talk Like a Pirate Day? We frequently have “Talk Like A ’30s Announcer” Day at our house.

Mike Dodge 12:31
You can ask anybody who has worked with me that I love that voice. And (like a 30’s announcer) maybe it’s because I naturally have a higher voice and I like to speak a little quickly, but I totally liked that back in the day. It was great. And you know, it’s funny

Christi Dodge 12:45
It’s an easy laugh too, I mean- I think there’s something comical about it so-

Mike Dodge 12:51
And you know what’s interesting is-what is kind of consciously replaced it, to me is actually not as funny. Even though Kent Brockman on The Simpsons is done to parody it: that booming announcer voice.

Christi Dodge 13:03
Oh, yeah,

Mike Dodge 13:04
(like Kent Brockman) “I for one, welcome our alien overlords.”

Christi Dodge 13:06
Right.

Mike Dodge 13:07
And to me, that’s, that’s less funny than (like a 30’s announcer) “I, for one, welcome our alien overlords.”

Christi Dodge 13:12
So Mike said, what is it? Where did it come from? Did they do it on purpose? What’s the story? And usually you’re the one that looks up stuff.

Mike Dodge 13:21
Yeah, actually, after you said the the name. I realized I had looked this up in the past but forgotten. Okay.

Christi Dodge 13:27
So I took it as my action item, as Mike would say. And I spent today learning. It’s the “transatlantic” or “mid-Atlantic” accent. And it comes from an aristocratic America kind of like back when, I mean, I would I associated it with the ’30s. But it came from the British, you know, it’s highly influenced by the British people who came across. And so that’s why they call it transatlantic because it’s not quite 100% British and it’s not an American accent, but it’s this kind of like blend.

Mike Dodge 13:59
I just realized who also is a fan of the transatlantic accent.

Christi Dodge 14:03
Who?

Mike Dodge 14:04
Amy Sherman Palladino.

Christi Dodge 14:05
Oh, oh, yeah.

Mike Dodge 14:07
Because Gilmore Girls talked so quickly. They didn’t quite maybe have the the pitch but the rest of it. It’s very much that.

Christi Dodge 14:14
So it’s interesting that you mentioned talk quickly, because that is an aspect of it, but in the couple of videos that I watched about this on YouTube, they did not mention the speed. They said that there’s there’s three distinct-

Mike Dodge 14:26
Features of it?

Christi Dodge 14:26
Yes, they’re telling me there’s three distinct features. It’s people often drop the R’s, when it occurs at the end of the word, so it’s like (without rhotic ending) mother, father.

Mike Dodge 14:36
That’s that’s very much from-

Christi Dodge 14:38
-from England. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Mike Dodge 14:40
Non-rhotic speech.

Christi Dodge 14:41
And then they have some it also has softer vowel sounds like (with a long a sound) dance instead of dance.

Mike Dodge 14:48
Oh, yeah. Chris Berg.

Christi Dodge 14:50
And there’s sharp T’s and so he said in America, we often when we see T’s especially if there’s two T’s we say it more like a So like writer water, but it’s they hit that T sound. So it’s (with hard t sounds) water, writer.

Mike Dodge 15:07
(also with a hard t sound) Fascinating.

Christi Dodge 15:10
And they mentioned that Hollywood loved it because it was hard to place. So you couldn’t tell was somebody from Chicago was somebody from Texas was somebody from New England. They just had this transatlantic accent and so they could be from anywhere.

Mike Dodge 15:27
Except that to me, as a child hearing it, I always assumed it was from New York.

Christi Dodge 15:32
Right? Exactly. I did too. I did, too.

Mike Dodge 15:35
Isn’t that fascinating, though? Much like now, everybody who wants to get into the news broadcast business adopts this, like Midwestern Kansas kind of pronunciation, right? They call it-what was it, received pronunciation or something? I think? And it’s also an affectation.

Christi Dodge 15:54
Yes, very much. So, a woman wrote a book, Edith Skinner wrote a book called Speak with Distinction, and she very much touted it and taught it. And so that became kind of like a Hollywood standard. But then it fell out of favor after World War II and fewer teachers were teaching students how to pronunciate in this way, but it very much had an aristocratic feel. FDR spoke this way, Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, who-

Mike Dodge 16:22
Right, was in It Happened One Night.

Christi Dodge 16:24
Yeah, see which one-I’m getting the leading man of this and the leading man of-so there you have it. That is the little bit of history in the background for that fast-speaking, and right away in It Happened One Night, the delivery of a lot of the lines, especially from Clark Gable, and her father are in that intonation and right and that speech.

Mike Dodge 16:46
So my question would be then be, of the speed, was-because I heard a lot of broadcasts of 1928 Chicago Cubs ballgames-if announcers spoke quickly because they’re trying to get more information to go, you know, like I said, (unintelligible transatlantic announcer sounds) or oh, gosh, as I said that: I think horse racing.

Christi Dodge 17:08
Yeah, well, yeah, I think not only that, but also, I think any sports event, they’re trying to keep up with the action. So of course, they’re talking faster.

Mike Dodge 17:19
Right. So not sloths, basically.

Christi Dodge 17:21
Not.

Mike Dodge 17:22
Yeah, yeah.

Christi Dodge 17:23
So what did you think of the acting, in addition to their, their speaking patterns of Clark Gable, and Claudette Colbert? Because let me let me interrupt you before you even get started. I had seen It Happened One Night, but Mike hadn’t, but I was so excited for him to see it because he loves rom-coms. And I said, I think this is probably like one of the first rom-coms.

Mike Dodge 17:45
Yeah, I did a little research on that. And it’s hard really to pin down what is the first rom-com but I think this qualifies. I think you can say this without much argument from anybody. I think if you look at the stereotypical kind of structure of a rom com-as defined by Billy Mernit-that this really definitely qualifies. Right? Because both characters actually are transformed by their love for each other.

And at the beginning of the film, we have the classic kind of meet cute, where they’re on a bus, right? And I think in both cases it works. Right? Because Clark Gable is very suave as a leading man he’s handsome although he’s really thin and maybe given the time you know post depression maybe folks we’re still not getting quite as much-

Christi Dodge 18:36
Quite jacked.

Mike Dodge 18:37
Yeah well, there’s there’s the fact that he wasn’t jacked, but you look at other people in other films, and they have, you know, they’re not chubby, but they have more meat on them. And I just I was struck by how thin he was in that, but he definitely is charming, right is extremely charming. And then Claudette Colbert plays this kind of ditzy heiress quite well.

My joke at the beginning was it was kind of like the same setup as Overboard, and she has this great line she delivers: “I come from a long line of stubborn idiots.” And I think in my opinion, she sold that very well. She sold the the role of the stubborn idiot heiress.

Christi Dodge 19:19
I wouldn’t. It’s a nice thing to use the word ditzy, I wouldn’t have qualified her is that because and maybe these are two separate things. So she could be ditzy. But she very much knew what she wanted. I mean, okay, the reason that she’s on the bus is because her father was trying to tell her what to do. She said, I’m not going to do it. He slaps her and she jumps off the yacht and swims away.

Mike Dodge 19:43
Okay, maybe. I don’t know. Maybe ditzy’s wrong. Privilege, perhaps? But she doesn’t realize when somebody’s stealing your suitcase, she doesn’t listen when people give her information. Like the bus isn’t going to wait for you. Right? She’s not properly budgeting her money so maybe that is all just privileged. She’s never had to deal with these things.

Christi Dodge 20:03
I do think I do think privileges are better. Because she at the beginning I remember I wrote in my notes because she jumps off the yacht and she swims away. And then she shows up at the bus station. And she has this beautiful outfit on. And I was just like, “Wait, where did she get the dry clothes and the beautiful outfit?” And later we find out she hocked a watch to get kind of her clothing that she has.

Mike Dodge 20:25
Right .

Christi Dodge 20:26
and so I think she’s actually quite resourceful because she has no money. She left all the money behind for freedom.

Mike Dodge 20:34
Okay, that’s interesting. Yeah, maybe “privileged” and “impulsive” meet at “foolish” Yeah, okay. So perhaps that that doesn’t-she does though. I think she could have a little flibbertigibbet in her in that some of these impulsive decisions.

Christi Dodge 20:52
Well, it’s cute because she kind of does act almost like a stubborn child, because when they’re on the bus, and she’s annoyed by him, and she keeps trying to almost like not sit with him. But then the alternatives. The seat partners that she ends up with are much worse than him. And so she begrudgingly and kind of like in a very, you know, not stubborn brat, but just kind of like, “Oh, alright, I’m going to have to go sit by him.” So Peter, I think his name is

Mike Dodge 21:20
There’s this character of King Wesley, which is her fiancé. And that actor, I think was doing what he was directed to do, because he is kind of the Bellamy where there’s nothing wrong with him. He’s just blue. Right? He’s He’s as bland as you can get, like plain yogurt. And then the dad is kind of over the top like that actor played her father, I think a little bit over the top.

But the newspaper editor is chewing the scenery like no one’s business, which may be at the time, right? Because it is a bit of a screwball comedy. It is fairly broadly drawn, and the actors in line at the autocamp for the shower. They were pretty broadly drawn. And I suspect those actors were were capable of more subtlety. But it was just kind of the way it was, you know, the style, the tone of the film.

Christi Dodge 22:10
So it was amazing to me, because I thought I felt like they Clark Gable, and Claudette Colbert had great chemistry. And I thought that their love story was totally believable.

Mike Dodge 22:22
Yep.

Christi Dodge 22:22
And so then afterwards to find out that five actresses turned down this part. Claudette did not want to do this part, they had to double her salary and promise that that filming would only take four weeks, because she had a vacation plan. And she didn’t want to miss it. And she was overheard, she told her friend on the last day, “I just finished making the worst picture I’ve ever made.” And then Clark Gable didn’t want to do it. He was on loan from MGM. He was being punished because he had an affair with Joan Crawford-

Mike Dodge 22:52
-that people found out about. It wasn’t the affair. It was the fact that it was publicized. That’s what they were mad about.

Christi Dodge 22:58
Right. And so he was overheard on set saying, “All right, let’s get this thing over with.” So neither one of them wanted to be there. That’s what great actors they are. We had no idea.

Mike Dodge 23:10
That is true. Also, I have to say credit to the editor. If while it was going, they didn’t see the magic that says to me that a lot happened in the edit. Also, I do wonder, though, if the way It Happened One Night is is, in some sense, supported by them wanting to get out of there, if that led to that fastness, and it’s a film basically where they’re fleeing the running.

Christi Dodge 23:33
Mm. It’s almost a road movie.

Mike Dodge 23:35
Oh, yeah, it is. And that and that energy? Well, speaking of a road movie, I did look it up. And in a modern vehicle, if you drove from Miami to New York, it would be 20 hours. I think in that bus, especially with stops, it’s going to be a couple of days at least. That’s a fairly long journey. I think that qualifies as a road film.

Christi Dodge 23:55
So were they on two separate but because she misses the bus the one time-

Mike Dodge 24:00
Yeah, they get on a different same line, same physical bus, I believe, different actor playing the driver.

Christi Dodge 24:05
That’s right, because he bought her basically her second ticket. Yeah. And so then one of the most famous scenes of this movie that I will also link in the show notes is they have to stay at a hotel and because there’s a because the second bus breaks down, and so everyone on the bus is going to need a room at this Motor Inn. And they have to share a room and it does have two twin beds.

But he tells and this is once again a very code thing kind of right he he tells them that they’re a married couple because that would be untoward for two single people to be even in the same room even though there are two twin beds. And so in order for them to because there’s no bathroom. It’s just like a one room space. They put up he draws a straight and puts a blanket over it. And they call it the “Walls of Jericho.”1 And that allows them to disrobe.

Mike Dodge 25:06
So from the category of “buy the premise, buy the bit-“

Christi Dodge 25:09
Yeah.

Mike Dodge 25:09
Why did he have a clothesline in his suitcase? And why were their hooks in the right place in the room?

Christi Dodge 25:15
So I think because I watched it this time knowing what was happening. The line was already on the wall. And I wonder if because suitcases were small. And did you you know, people wash their laundry? Yeah, well, you know, people wash their underwear and their socks, kind of just so you don’t have to pack as many. I know, you can’t do that. But I think that there was already a line there for people to do that and hang their stuff on to dry.

Mike Dodge 25:45
Yeah, I would. That’s more believable. If the line was already there. I thought I saw him bring it out of his suitcase. For laundry. I will mention that. I did that in my college dorm room. And it also has the added benefit of humidifying a California dry desert air you get quite a bit of humidity from those hanging t-shirts.

Christi Dodge 26:05
Do you enjoy that?

Mike Dodge 26:06
Oh, yes, I did.

Christi Dodge 26:07
So as we’re talking about by the premise by the bit, what did you think of a writing? Did you feel like it? It made sense that it was-

Mike Dodge 26:15
Yeah, I felt like for the the tone of the film. The writing did make sense. Right? There were some some areas where it didn’t quite make complete sense to me. Right there is the the part where the bus driver drives off into the mud and kind of to set up them being at one of the motoring camps. Right.

Another one is there’s a bit where she goes to take a shower and there’s a long line and if you do the math on when they said the bus was leaving, I don’t think there is any, any chance that she could have gotten through there and you just turn around and go back to your room and do a PTSD bath. A la Dax Shepard, right. So some of that stuff. But the basic premise right of her running away, made some degree of sense and they open up was good writing to show us that she was ridiculous in that she was going on a hunger strike to get her way. So very childish, but also shows a very stubborn person.

Christi Dodge 27:14
Well, and he he I have in my notes, he says, You ungrateful brat. So he calls her. So I think very much we narrowed in on I think she was kind of more of a stubborn brat than a flibbertigibbet.

Mike Dodge 27:26
Right? They take her money away. So they put that pressure on her-

Christi Dodge 27:29
Right.

Mike Dodge 27:30
-a time pressure, she is right, get to New York by a certain time.

Christi Dodge 27:33
And he also has pressure too, because when we meet him, he’s telling off his editor. And-

Mike Dodge 27:39
He basically gets fired.

Christi Dodge 27:40
Right. And he’s got it and but then once he realizes that she’s the missing heiress, he sees an opportunity to write the story because he’s closer than anybody, until other people start to figure out who she is. And other people try to take advantage of the fact that because I thought there was that the second seatmate that she had-not the guy that fell asleep on her, but yeah, I thought he was trying to kind of almost like, turn her in, so he could get the reward money.

Mike Dodge 28:08
Right. And it was interesting how the character played by Clark Gable turns that guy around so he won’t turn her in by basically making it seem like they’re going to kill her. And he’s now and like, you know, have kids and a wife and all of that. And there’s also the character played by Alan Hale, who tries to rip them off. So I thought that was probably fairly realistic at that time right? What I didn’t quite know, though, is whether it was reasonable for even a rich guy to mobilize the resources that he did. I mean, that was almost like the Lindbergh baby-level of, but again, given the tone of the film, I thought it worked. It was fine.

Christi Dodge 28:49
And it almost sounds a Planes, Trains and Automobiles, because yeah, I’m thinking of the other famous scene from this movie, is there hitchhiking? And so he’s standing up there with his thumb up, and they’re not getting any traction. And she’s like, let me try. And that’s where she lifts up her skirt, and the first car that goes by kind of slams on his brakes. And so they end up in two separate buses, and then now this guy’s car. So it very much has that feeling of we have to do a bunch of different modes of transportation in order to get to New York,

Mike Dodge 29:18
I will say because there’s no horse so dead that I can’t beat it, that I think every single time I’ve ever gotten a ride from someone when they pull up, I pull my shorts up here show some leg.

Christi Dodge 29:28
Yes, I can. I can verify that. I thought it was a funny scene, when they were in the hotel room. And there’s some like investigators coming to the door to look because they’re looking for this heiress. And so she’s trying to hide herself. And so they do like this improv kind of, of being a married couple, and they just start basically fighting. It was so loud.

Mike Dodge 29:51
Right? She’s crying and he’s yelling at her, which basically the premises it makes these other investigators uncomfortable, seeing this domestic strife. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I thought that he’s a clever character. And it’s almost like there maybe were other characters in cinema or even television that are based on this fast talking clever thinking guy from the East Coast who likes to eat raw carrots.

Christi Dodge 30:20
Oh yes, yes. I forgot to mention that. His portrayal inspired Bugs Bunny.

Mike Dodge 30:27
Yeah. And and when you look at it from that perspective, you can totally you can totally see it.

Christi Dodge 30:31
It’s really fun. Yeah. And then there were two other characters that inspired Yosemite Sam and Roadrunner, I think.

Mike Dodge 30:39
No, Pepe LePew.

Christi Dodge 30:40
Oh, that’s right.

Mike Dodge 30:40
Inspired by King Wesley. And then the her father, I forget what his character’s name is, but basically Yosemite-

Christi Dodge 30:48
Oh, I might have it.

Mike Dodge 30:49
-was Yosemite Sam’s inspiration, which I didn’t get as much because he didn’t kind of have that Western “tarnation” voice. But I could kind of see in the sense of just he’s kind of mad.

Christi Dodge 31:01
I think her last name was Andrews in the film. So I think Walter Connolly played Alexander Andrews.

Mike Dodge 31:06
Yeah, that sounds right.

Christi Dodge 31:07
So you love to look at the cinematography. And we did pause a couple times to just talk about how gorgeous they lit her. And some of the bus scenes were pretty dark. But or no, she was lit really well on the bus. But when they were in the room, it was quite dark at times, because they did turn off the light and they just didn’t do the thing that I see a lot of movies do where it’s like the moonlight lightsome you know, where the street light lights them?

Mike Dodge 31:35
Well, one thing I noticed was, there is in one of the rooms there in the auto camp, as they call it it’s very dark, but she has gorgeous catch lights.

Christi Dodge 31:45
Yes.

Mike Dodge 31:46
Which doesn’t make any sense at all, like practically. And of course they do the thing where it only rains at night, because that’s nice and dramatic. It shows up well on film. Right. And I was very curious. I love to see how they did the actual shooting of that shot because the rain was substantially heavy.

Christi Dodge 32:04
Yeah, well, it’s because they just use like a sprinkler.

Mike Dodge 32:07
Yeah, but that-

Christi Dodge 32:08
I mean, nowadays, they have better like, misters that you can go from a light mist to a medium rain to a heavy rain. But back then I think it was just like a Rain Bird.

Mike Dodge 32:21
Right? Yeah. It was the one that looks like the sunflower center part with the seeds. You know, the giant one.

Christi Dodge 32:27
Yeah, because they couldn’t use the (imitating lawn sprinkler sound)

Mike Dodge 32:30
Exactly. But I just meant in volume of water. Yeah, no, that shot was long, they put a lot of water under the sound.

Christi Dodge 32:36
Maybe just a PA on the roof, just you know, with his thumb over the opening of the hose or a fire hose or something.

Mike Dodge 32:43
Back then they probably hired like a child to hang from their feet, like upside down with the hose. (in a transatlantic voice) “More rain, Jimmy!”

Christi Dodge 32:52
So for editing we we paused or at least commented a couple times, I noticed I really enjoyed when they were first-there was a seat in the back that kind of it wasn’t one individual seat or two individual seats. It was like a bench. And so she sat there and he “says to the driver, he goes that seats meant for two, right?” And the drivers like “I don’t know.” And he goes “well it is today” and so he goes down.

And so they’re sitting quite close. And up until that point, they always shot that scene, I’d say like a medium wide kind of it was like from their knees. And then when he sits down with her, I noticed they went to a little bit of what I call I guess a tighter medium because now it’s like waist up. And so and the edges of the frame are pretty much just on the other side of both of their shoulders. So makes us feel that-

Mike Dodge 33:48
Intimate.

Christi Dodge 33:48
Yeah, that tighter that they’re closer together. And they’re in a confined space kind of in there in the back of the bus.

Mike Dodge 33:55
One of the things I wondered about that was related to production about basically speeding principal photography was how many long shots they had. So they didn’t get a lot of coverage and appeared and one scene where that really-

Christi Dodge 34:09
They only had 28 days.

Mike Dodge 34:11
-right, is in the breakfast at the autocamp if you watch there is at least one full minute if not longer, where it is a continuous shot. And what makes that amazing is their eating during it. So this means that there is no spit bucket.

Christi Dodge 34:29
Right.

Mike Dodge 34:30
So either they took one take, or Clark and Claudette were like-

Christi Dodge 34:34
Sick.

Mike Dodge 34:35
-ill afterwards, but I think they did one take like (in a transatlantic voice) “let’s just get it done!”

Christi Dodge 34:38
So it’s funny you bring this up because this weekend while I was doing some stuff, I was listening to a fabulous podcast, you guys. It’s called the Directors Guild. And if you enjoy our podcast, it’s fabulous. They talk to the directors of many movies that are coming out right now and I can’t wait to kick myself, I don’t know if it was Paul Thomas Anderson, because I know I listened that episode about the Macbeth movie that just came out, but it was somebody else and it was a director and he has tattooed on his forearm: “Always get the wide.”

Mike Dodge 35:10
That’s awesome.

Christi Dodge 35:11
It’s so great. And so maybe Frank Capra was, you know, just making sure just at least get your wide shot.

Mike Dodge 35:18
Yeah, I can say there is benefit in just having them run through the entire scene with the wide. It’s awesome.

Christi Dodge 35:25
Yeah. So we that was going on there a couple other edits we loved. Well, one didn’t love it. But it was kind of fun to catch, because you you don’t see one this blatant. But there was a bad cut.

Mike Dodge 35:37
Oh, yeah.

Christi Dodge 35:37
When he was undressing, and he starts to grab, he’s down to-he’s taking his shirt off, which we’ll talk about in a second because that was important. And he’s taking his shoes off. And he goes, “and now I take my pants off” and he goes to grab his waist. And she runs out. And so we see her kind of I think she makes an exclamation of some point. “Oh,” or y’know squeals. And she runs towards her side of the room. And then the next scene, she’s still standing over there. And then she runs and it was just like, oh, man, look at the that was a bad edit.

Mike Dodge 36:11
That was by a few more than a few seconds.

Christi Dodge 36:13
Oh, by a couple Mississippi’s.

Mike Dodge 36:16
Yeah, “whoopsie.”

Christi Dodge 36:18
But one thing we love. There’s an edit near. I think it’s like two thirds of the way through. And I can’t remember. Was it a police station? But we love it when one door closes, another one opens. And they did it so perfectly. Because they were all they were both on-

Mike Dodge 36:34
On the right side of the screen.

Christi Dodge 36:35
Thank you.

Mike Dodge 36:36
And they pretty much framed the door jamb in the same spots. Yeah. As one closed, the editor cut to the other one opening.

Christi Dodge 36:44
Yeah, such a fun shot.

Mike Dodge 36:45
It was kind of fun.

Christi Dodge 36:46
We got to try to do that.

Mike Dodge 36:48
Yeah, we should do that.

Christi Dodge 36:50
So let’s go to costuming, because there is kind of a fun little bit of trivia here. First of all, I loved early on in the movie he’s got-is that a fedora? I don’t know men’s hats. What was he wearing?

Mike Dodge 37:02
Neither do I. But I’m gonna say that-

Christi Dodge 37:04
It’s such a classic for that era.

Mike Dodge 37:07
I do know enough to know that. They’re not all fedoras. There are subtle distinctions. But I don’t know what they are.

Christi Dodge 37:13
Right. He’s wearing a great hat. Let’s just say that.

Mike Dodge 37:15
It’s a nice hat.

Christi Dodge 37:16
He looks fabulous in it too, and she’s got this cute little black beret on and so I just thought it was kind of funny early in the film and they meet in a way they’re like, so clothed that they’re both even covering their head. Or maybe it’s that they’re so put together early in the film. And then by the end of the film, I don’t think either one of them are wearing their hat.

Mike Dodge 37:37
So it’s interesting that you that’s what you caught on the costuming-

Christi Dodge 37:41
Oh, he sold the hat for gasoline. So he didn’t have it.

Mike Dodge 37:44
-because my notes were from an entirely different perspective.

Christi Dodge 37:47
Yeah.

Mike Dodge 37:47
First note is I thought the bus drivers outfit looked a little too much Nazi. Oh, for my tastes.

Christi Dodge 37:54
Well, what year are we ’39?

Mike Dodge 37:56
Yeah. And and I felt like there is a cook at the first stop. They-they come to that was announcing that breakfast was ready.

Christi Dodge 38:04
Right.

Mike Dodge 38:04
And this is a very dark-complected fellow. And I felt like that looked like the cover of like the Gentle Ben’s or what, Uncle Ben’s rice or whatever. It was those those two things stuck out to me

Christi Dodge 38:16
Very stereotypical.

Mike Dodge 38:17
Yeah, it was very heavy.

Christi Dodge 38:19
A little uncomfortable. All right on to nicer things.

Mike Dodge 38:23
Yeah.

Christi Dodge 38:24
We learned in the trivia of this film. There’s this the scene when there he’s undressing near the Walls of Jericho. And he’s explaining to her how he dresses because he is that he does it quickly. Or he has he says-

Mike Dodge 38:37
He says every man has their own way of doing it. And it’s really cleverly done because he is flirting with her. And if you look at the blocking, he’s basically standing between her and where maybe she would-

Christi Dodge 38:52
Retreat.

Mike Dodge 38:53
Yeah. And he’s starting to undress. And so it’s basically a striptease. It’s a male striptease.

Christi Dodge 38:59
Yeah, it’s really it’s a great scene. I will link that one too in the show notes because it’s available on on YouTube.

Mike Dodge 39:06
And that in that dialogue right there in particular reminded me, and maybe Kevin Smith won’t like me giving credit to Bruce Willis, but of Moonlighting.

Yes, yes, I would agree.

The way he’s doing that, especially the part where he’s like, “most guys would go to but I don’t.”

Christi Dodge 39:20
Right. Right. I would totally agree. So he’s taking off everything. And as they were doing it in the first couple shots, Capra was frustrated because when he would when he would take his shirt off and his undershirt he was having trouble getting through all of it quick enough to be in sync with his-his lines. And so Capra said, “just don’t wear your undershirt, just take off your shirt and, and then just keep going to your shoes.” And when audiences saw this two things happen.

Well, first of all, it was titillating to see Clark Gable bare chested, because as we discussed, this was kind of a pre-or, you know, a mid-code era. And that wasn’t seen, but then, it’s thought that they saw a drop in undershirt sales because men were kind of like, well, if Clark Gable doesn’t have to wear one, I don’t have to wear one either.

Mike Dodge 40:11
Yes, which I think really set us back as a species. I think there’s value in as I put it, two layers of clothing in the bikini areas. So…

Christi Dodge 40:23
Legend has it that couple underwear manufacturers tried to sue Columbia also.

Mike Dodge 40:28
See, in the modern era, he would have turned around as he would have gotten an endorsement from Fruit of the Loom.

Christi Dodge 40:33
Right, exactly. So anything else that stood out for you in this film?

Mike Dodge 40:38
Well, I have a lot of entries from the “couldn’t be made today.” department.

Christi Dodge 40:43
Yes. You mentioned two.

Mike Dodge 40:44
I mentioned a couple. Another one that that kind of got to me was, there’s a line where he says “what she needs is a guy who will take a sock at her once a day.” I mean, no. Wow. That’s

Christi Dodge 40:57
Ooh, Clark.

Mike Dodge 40:58
Yeah, that one’s rough.

Christi Dodge 41:00
And ironically, we’re recording this on like, National Women’s Day.

Mike Dodge 41:04
Right? Yeah. This her story. The dad slaps her again. Yeah, not so cool. She smokes like a chimney.

Christi Dodge 41:14
Yes, absolutely.

Mike Dodge 41:16
They all smoke, but in particular, and not that I necessarily support this idea that you can’t have characters smoking cigarettes and films, but it is such a noticeable difference couldn’t be made today, right? There’s also a part where he pretends to backhand her. And he gives her a spanking.

Christi Dodge 41:35
He was a little handsy, that Clark Gable.

Mike Dodge 41:38
Yeah, there was quite a bit of-

Christi Dodge 41:39
Doesn’t he slap Vivian Leigh in-or maybe he just doesn’t give a damn.

Mike Dodge 41:44
Yeah, I don’t know, there is a lot of slapping ladies back in the day. I don’t have a list of them. But I did notice that they were a little free to smack her around.

Christi Dodge 41:54
Thank you for only adopting the way that they speak and not how they treated women from this era.

Mike Dodge 42:01
Yeah, I try not to support that part of it as well. But there’s also this idea of this casual crime, right that that goes on. People are stealing suitcases and mugging you. That’s not quite maybe “couldn’t be made today,” but I did notice that apparently, in 1934, travel was pretty dangerous.

Christi Dodge 42:24
Fast and loose with the laws?

Mike Dodge 42:26
Oh, wow. Fast and Furious. Maybe they need to go back in time. And do one in 1930.

Christi Dodge 42:31
So I feel like you mentioned a couple but, any head trauma?

Mike Dodge 42:35
Mostly it’s just her getting slapped.

Christi Dodge 42:37
Oh, jeez.

Mike Dodge 42:38
Yeah.

Christi Dodge 42:38
So it’s interesting, in doing research for this episode, I found a video (I can also link) and they talked about that there is not a smoochy in this film.

Mike Dodge 42:49
(sound effect) Smoochy smoochy smoochy!

I’m checking my notes. But I don’t have I don’t believe-there’s only an almost-smoochy at 58 minutes, 20 seconds

Christi Dodge 42:57
There’s an almost-smoochy and they-this couple-this-this man and woman who are in the video talking, they were suggesting that that actually intensified the titillation, and that’s one of the things that they didn’t put in because of the code. Although I can’t believe that, that like a boyfriend, girlfriend couldn’t kiss. But you know, I guess I’m glad I wasn’t born in the code era.

Mike Dodge 43:20
I’m forgetting where it was actually set up, but if they were blocked in-if they did that scene inside the room at the autocamp there might have been the implication that more was going on?

Christi Dodge 43:32
Yeah, you’re right.

Mike Dodge 43:33
A little boom chicka wow wow.

Christi Dodge 43:34
And so they were just talking about how the the two of them: that’s what made this film so enjoyable is it wasn’t just like, a quick, you know, like, “oh, they jump in bed in there a couple,” it was this, like you said the kind of the flirtation from Moonlighting, where it’s the sexual tension of-

Mike Dodge 43:53
“Will they won’t they.”

Christi Dodge 43:53
“Will they won’t they.” And “do they like each other?” “Don’t they like each other?” “Are they going to get together?” Which I thought, when I heard that, very much reminded me of kind of how you handled Second Story. Because in 10 minutes, you’re not going to madly fall in love and kiss a guy. So we we wanted the promise of-that this could be at least a friendship maybe, but maybe even more maybe Mary and Jack would get together and that’s kind of what they did here with-

Mike Dodge 44:26
Right so and Jack leans into whispering Mary’s ear, that last line-

Christi Dodge 44:30
Yeah.

Mike Dodge 44:30
I’m getting myself, it’s like-let’s say I did it because of the almost kissed in it. That’ll sound better.

Christi Dodge 44:39
Alright, how about, there’s a lot of driving in this film.

Mike Dodge 44:42
There is in first-

Christi Dodge 44:44
Buckle up everybody.

Mike Dodge 44:46
-we see a 1932 Yellow Coach Z-CN-670 And that is the bus and it is a distinctive looking bus looked it up apparently wasn’t very popular. This film is where most of the hits for that bus come from.

Christi Dodge 44:59
Oh wow.

Mike Dodge 45:00
So you’ll notice it has an external horn. And we get to hear that a few times.

Christi Dodge 45:06
Awoogah!

Mike Dodge 45:06
Oh, boy that was loud in the mix. And I also noticed as part of the driving review, that the bus driver turns around to look at everyone singing, when when the passengers break out into song.

Christi Dodge 45:20
Yeah what were they singing?

Mike Dodge 45:23
The Flying Trapeze.

Yes, yes.

Christi Dodge 45:25
And that’s a song that I only know from my youth. I don’t know where whether we sing it in school.

I played-I played it on my flute. So I bet you played it on your clarinet.

Mike Dodge 45:36
Yeah, I probably did. And I will notice that I believe it was the turning around to watch the performance that led to them steering into the muddy ditch.

Christi Dodge 45:46
I think you’re right.

Mike Dodge 45:46
Except that based on the way the shot was done, it looks like he made like a hard right to get into the muddy ditch. And I’m not sure, but maybe he was holding the wheel as he turned to the right, who knows. So that’s not particularly good. You’ll notice there’s a Model T. And so Alan Hale’s character, picks them up any attempts to rob them or whatever. But and then Clark Gable steals the Model T, we just pass over that grand larceny. But the steam is coming out of the radiator cap the entire time.

So by the time the radiator is steaming, you’re in deep trouble, you’re gonna run out of water and it will seize the engine. So that that was that was not particularly accurate, I have to give a point there. And he panic stops the Model T in order to pick her up. And I have it from someone who actually owned one that if you do that kind of screeching panic stop, it wears the drums smooth and then the brakes don’t work anymore, you actually literally have to replace the drums to get them to work anymore, which I’m guessing that the writer probably was not aware unless you had actually had a Model T.

Christi Dodge 46:53
Robert Riskin.

Mike Dodge 46:54
Not exactly a driving review, but I did love the line: “If you change your mind, your car is waiting at the back gate.” So it’s always good to have a getaway car idling someplace. And I have to say special note: this is the only film I can think of that has an auto-gyro in it.

Christi Dodge 47:11
What is that?

Mike Dodge 47:12
It’s this half-helicopter half-plane thing. And King Wesley flies one to his own wedding. Which if I remember correctly, I think that actor flew the dang thing. Because there is a scene where the thing is obviously still operational on the ground. And he puts on a top hat. Because of course if you’re going to stand up right beneath a giant rotor, you want your head to be taller. It was amazing that they threw that in it didn’t make a lick of sense. But it was awesome to see an auto gyro on film.

Christi Dodge 47:41
There you go. Should we go to the numbers?

Mike Dodge 47:44
Let’s go to the numbers.

Christi Dodge 47:45
All right, this 1934 film had a budget of $325,000. And it actually-it did quite well despite only getting mediocre reviews early on. It gained in popularity as as people you know, word of mouth. People told their friends “go see this movie.” It brought in $2.5 million worldwide. So I would say that’s a success. Good job. Frank Capra. It got an 8.1 on IMDb and we know that’s good because they they rate low. Rotten Tomatoes critics gave it and 99% and audiences gave it a 93. So this one definitely is up there and the top movies, the must-see movies, it’s an hour and 45 minutes.

Like I said it passed the ratings board, it’s a rom com, we paused this movie four times. We watch the pickup line twice. I think the third time we were talking about lighting because we love when when the leading ladies get gorgeous lighting, and the fourth time to talk about the Bugs Bunny reference that I had read in the trivia to let you know that. So let’s see. Gosh, at 55 minutes.

I think we’ve talked enough about what happened one night, but join us next week when we’re going to be talking about one of our favorites only angels have wings to round out. This month of Christie’s Classics and leave thoughts, reviews. Follow us on all our social medias Dodge Media Productions. Let us know if you have any questions and never forget.

Mike Dodge 49:19
Dodges never stop and neither do the movies.

Brennan 49:21
Thanks for listening to Dodge Movie Podcast with Christi and Mike dodge of Dodge Media Productions. To find out more about this podcast and what we do. Go to dodgemediaproductions.com. Subscribe, share, leave a comment and tell us what we should watch next. Dodges never stopped and neither do the movies.