By Ethan Gough
WKTV Community Contributor

After four long years of lackluster classes, tedious tests, and Michelle Obama-approved school lunches, I have come to the conclusion that the fondest memories I have of high school consist of the fleeting moments after school hours when I wasn’t being thoroughly “educated,” but instead I was letting myself slip away into the comforting world of cinema. I watched a lot of movies during those moments, and as a result, I have a lot of movies to talk about, and not one piece of homework turned in on time. Is there really a better remedy to this dilemma than to write a series of articles covering the various films that got me through my arduous high school experience? Not when you love movies as much as I do! So, throughout the summer, I shall be presenting you “The Movies That Got Me Through High School!”

It Happened One Night

Why choose to write about a cheesy 1930s  romantic comedy for your first entry on a list of films that got you through high school? How is that relevant to your life? On a more important note, how is it relevant to the lives of your readers?

Those are both legitimate questions. Here’s my attempt at answering them.

It Happened One Night is about a spoiled heiress named Ellie Andrews who runs away from her controlling father after he attempts to have her marriage to a famous – but clearly phony – aviator named King Westly annulled. Determined to be with her husband, Ellie disguises herself as a commoner and hops on a bus to New York. Along the way, she meets Peter Warn, a smart-mouth journalist who decides to help Ellie on her journey in exchange for her headline-making story. At first, their opposite personalities clash. Peter is repulsed by Ellie’s privileged upbringing and lack of street smarts, and Ellie is completely taken aback by Peter’s blunt sarcasm and bullying personality. As you might have guessed, the two eventually get to know each other more and end up falling in love.

The film is by the legendary Italian-born American director Frank Capra, who possessed a unique quality that no filmmaker has managed to successfully imitate. Movies like It’s A Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, and Mr. Deeds, are not just great escapist entertainment. They are individual works of art that all share one central theme, people need each other. Despite how different we perceive ourselves to be from one another (because of our class, experiences, or intelligence) we are all human, and that makes us the same.

It Happened One Night delivers this message through its main characters. It’s easy to pass off their dynamic as predictable or cliche, especially when you consider that almost every movie ever made with a love story has used it, but to do this is to ignore the fact that this movie was released at a time when the cinema hadn’t even reached middle age. Watching these two leads go from hating each other to being unable to live without one another will cause anyone to come dangerously close to becoming a romantic. 

I never feel bad after watching this movie. Its purpose is to make the audience feel warm and happy by any means necessary. This is likely why everyone involved in making the film thought it would be a flop. Both the leads, Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable, didn’t want to be in the movie. The pampered Hollywood A-listers were not used to filming at real-life locations, which is really the only practical way to shoot a movie that mostly takes place during a bus trip to New York. On top of that, Columbia Pictures didn’t think the film had any chance of attracting a large audience and made very little effort to advertise it. Against all odds and expectations, this simple love story managed to take home five Academy Awards (including Best Picture, and Gables only win for Best Actor) and is remembered as the film that kicked off the classic romantic comedy setup that we still see to this day (some may argue that’s a curse, but those are the same people who dislike Star Wars because it caused, “the death of cinema”).

I’ve watched at least one scene from this movie every month since I first saw it two years ago at the beginning of my sophomore year, just a few months before Covid 19 would enter the country and change everything. The simplicity of the story and the theme of becoming your best self through love has always resonated with me. In life, the people we are most different from generally aren’t the people we are attracted to; but, in the world of cinema, a spoiled rich girl really can find something to love about a poor journalist with nothing to offer her but lessons on how to properly dunk a donut into a cup of coffee or hitch a ride from a complete stranger. There’s something so sweet about that notion, and it makes this charming little black and white screwball comedy impossible to resist. After years of countless rewatches it still never fails to tug at my heartstrings and make me see the world through a lens tinted with hope and optimism.

Ethan Gough is an Independent filmmaker and film critic pursuing his passion for cinema at Motion Picture Institute in Troy, Michigan this fall. He received the award for Best Live Action Short at the 2020 Kent County Teen Film Festival for his film Summer Days. He had two films in the 2022 Kent County Teen Film Festival, Bros Night and Alone. Ethan also written from Reel Rundown and Hub Pages.

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