It Happened One Night (1934) - Frank Capra | Houselights #292

House of Capra opens with the one that started it all. Frank Capra's 1934 road comedy put a runaway heiress and a broke reporter on a cross-country bus and accidentally wrote the blueprint every romantic comedy has borrowed from since. Clark Gable pulls your eye whether the scene asks for it or not, and Claudette Colbert matches him beat for beat. There's a blanket, a clothesline, and a stretch of empty highway that do more with restraint than most modern rom-coms manage with everything at their disposal. We get into why a movie made for pocket change swept every major Oscar, where Bugs Bunny came from, and which Mel Brooks film quietly lifted the whole structure.