It Happened One Night is definitely one of my favorite romantic comedies. Directed by Frank Capra and written by Robert Riskin and Samuel Hopkins, It Happened One Night was ahead of its time. Claudette Colbert portrayed Ellie, a rich woman newly married to King Westley. She is taken from her husband by her father because he disagrees with the marriage. While on her father's yaht, Ellie expresses that she should be allowed to do what she wishes and jumps overboard in an attempt to find her way back to her her husband, her love. Through having to face the hard realities of traveling with no food, clothing, or means, she reluctantly allows Peter Warne (a hard-hitting reporter) to help her find her way back to her husband. Peter Warne has alternative motives, of course. He plans to follow Ellie in the hopes of turning her life into a juicy story.
Ellie Andrews is portrayed as a head-strong woman who is determined to get on as easily as an man (especially Peter Warne) of the age does. Although she has been raised in a well-to-do environment, she ultimately makes her mark as a woman that can survive when having to make do with very little. She is a strong, innovative, and determined woman. There is quite a difference in the way that women are portrayed since the silent film The General to the more modern "talkie", It Happened One Night. The leading female role in It Happened One Night was, literally and metaphorically, given a voice. The leading female role, when comparing the two films (The General and It Happened One Night), seems to have evolved since the former (The General, that is). The General portrayed women as if they hadn't developed common sense; that they were idiotic and all together "ridiculous". It Happened One Night changed all of that. Women weren't mute in any way, they could speak and they had a say in what they wanted out of their lives. Women now did what they had to do to make it in the world.
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