“I suppose a lot of my comedy comes from painful moments or experiences in life, and you just flip them on their head.”                                  ~ Miranda Hart, comedian, actress, writer

Since it is so rare that a work of comedy wins Best Picture, I thought it would behoove us to talk a little this week about what comedy is and what that means for the significance of this week’s film, It Happened One Night. We’ll save the tragedy discussion for a few weeks down the road, perhaps with Hamlet (1948).

In literature, a comedy is usually defined as a story that has a happy ending, one that starts low and ends high. In film comedies, the happy ending element is present; but depending on the type of comedy, the movie will also possess awkward or unusual situations and characters cleverly or clumsily extricating themselves from these predicaments. Irony can also play a part in comedies. Nothing goes as planned, resulting in hilarious adjustments or evasions. Witticisms are not absent from comedies, nor are double entendres and puns scarce. Frequently, characters exhibit wacky mannerisms and quirky traits. Any combination of these characteristics of movie comedies provides amusement and humor.

But 1934 was one of the oddest times in American history for a comedy to steal the spotlight, rock the box office, and sweep the most prestigious Academy Awards categories. Or was it?

By 1934, America had been transformed by the Great Depression. The national average for unemployment had reached twenty-five percent the year before, with unemployment rates for those who lived in cities much, much higher. About 100,000 people lost their jobs per week during certain periods of the Great Depression—and it’s both important and shocking to remember that the people who were employed for just a few hours per week don’t even count toward these unemployment stats! Manufacturing and business declined. One in four farmers lost their farms. Thousands of banks closed. Shanty towns called “Hoovervilles” sprung up everywhere as homes for those who no longer possessed real houses. Starvation and malnutrition had become common, everyday American experiences; and some people took to observing what animals ate so they could copy their dietary habits and survive.

Ellie’s legendary strategy for stopping cars

How very ironic, then, that the first line of It Happened One Night is spoken by the wealthy Alexander Andrews, who responds “Hunger strike, eh?” when a crew member of his yacht tells him of his daughter’s refusal to eat. The fact that the Andrews family has abundant food and that Ellie rejects eating it would have been so foreign—and perhaps insulting—to Americans clinging to life in the 1930s. And yet somehow the utter ridiculousness of a spoiled heiress not cherishing her privileges and instead pretending to be an average person riding the night bus to New York with only one set of clothes and a suitcase of money becomes hilarious rather than injurious. Ellie becomes sympathetic instead of offensive—probably because the film makes it clear that Ellie doesn’t value her elevated social status because it deprives her of her freedom. She is subject to her father’s every whim, stalked by bodyguards, and unable to make her own decisions about anything, namely about whom to marry. As per the film, then, freedom is more prized than wealth.

Just as the value of personal freedom exceeds the benefits of wealth and social status, so also does fear trump hunger. Or does it? As Peter and Ellie attempt to harbor in a field of haystacks one night, they have a most interesting exchange which is worth quoting in full here:

Ellie: Peter…I’m awfully hungry.

Peter: Awh, just your imagination.

Ellie: No it isn’t. I’m hungry and…and scared.

Peter: Ya can’t be hungry and scared both at the same time.

Ellie: While I am.

Peter: If you’re scared, it scares the hunger out of ya.

Ellie: Not if you’re more hungry than scared.

Peter: Alright, you win. Let’s forget about it.

Ellie: I can’t forget it. I’m still hungry.

What a fantastic picture of the 1930s themselves! Which is worse, hunger or fear? Which is more vital, individual survival or group morale? Just a year before the release of It Happened One Night, Franklin D. Roosevelt during his first inaugural address infamously proclaimed, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Brave, memorable words—and yet the people hearing them, although recognizing the need to persevere, were starving, out of work, and demoralized. How can one turn fear into boldness when one cannot turn dust into bread? How can optimism win out against the more real pain of famishment?

It Happened One Night actually provides a single answer to these questions—love. As Ellie admits, her fear for the future doesn’t exceed the physical discomfort of her hunger. Yet when she mistakes Peter’s momentary absence for abandonment, her devastation at losing the man she loves actually erases her hunger, at least for a while. Similarly, Peter’s foraging for raw carrots to assuage their hunger, which at first disgusts the pampered Ellie, leads her to adjust her own views and habits to trust that he has her best interest in mind (and to her eating the carrots as well). In short then, love trumps fear and hunger and social class and wealth.

For Me Then…

Again, I love this movie, and I sometimes find it hard to think more deeply about a film that I feel I’ve watched simply for enjoyment or entertainment. But It Happened One Night with its emphasis on the transcendence of love offers more than just entertainment. Though the film’s love is of the romantic kind, it is a type of romance unlike most of what is portrayed in films today—you know, the ones where you have to fast forward through certain scenes or throw a blanket over your head for a moment. Instead, Peter protects and cares for Ellie, providing for her needs and teaching her life skills she does not know. Likewise, Ellie cares for Peter, working with him to achieve their common goals. Neither is out to gain sexual advantage over the other. Chivalry isn’t dead. How extremely refreshing!

The Walls of Jericho (Check out the film to learn more about this chivalrous sleeping arrangement!)

Furthermore, the pure enjoyment this film offers its viewers must have been a huge draw in the 1930s. Yes, the movie discusses hunger and fear and brief homelessness. But it takes these commonplace occurrences of the Great Depression and flips them into comedic situations that doubtless encouraged moviegoers of the 1930s to forget their struggles for the moment. In my very first post, I noted how movies are not simply escapism, but for this film and its time, perhaps that was what people needed it to be, maybe that was the best thing that could be offered to viewers at that time. This fact might not make It Happened One Night vault to the top of the greatest films lists now, but it filled a void and met a need back then, and for that it remains a classic and a most worthwhile escape.