It Happened One Night It Happened One Night It Happened One Night is a 1934 pre-Code American romantic comedy film with elements of screwball comedy directed and co-produced by Frank Capra, in collaboration with Harry Cohn, in which a pampered socialite (Claudette Colbert) tries to get out from under her father's thumb and falls in love with a roguish reporter (Clark Gable). The plot is based on the August 1933 short story "Night Bus" by Samuel Hopkins Adams, which provided the shooting title. Classified as a "pre-Code" production, the film is among the last romantic comedies created before the MPAA began rigidly enforcing the
It Happened Here film was in the making for the next eight years, which the "Guinness Book of World Records" (as of 2003) calls the longest ever production schedule. "It Happened Here" was shot in black and white on 16 mm film, giving it a grainy, newsreel feel (no actual stock footage was used). Most of the equipment used in the production was borrowed. The audio quality (and lighting) on the opening reel is rather poor, which makes the dialogue difficult to follow for the first few minutes. Stanley Kubrick, who was intrigued by the project, donated film stock from "Dr. Strangelove" to