Gable and Colbert make an unlikely couple, but the chemistry works.

It Happened One Night is a 1934 romantic comedy directed by Frank Capra and staring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. The film was a runaway success, sweeping the boards at the Oscars; winning Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay one of only a handful of films to do so, even to this day. The film is still highly rated today being an IMDB top 250 movie, and not yet available on Blu-ray, so I thought I’d have a quick look at the iTunes version.

All of the major players in this production from the director downwards didn’t think much of the film while it was in production. In particular the relationship between Colbert and Capra was icy. It opened to mixed reviews, and marginal business, but after reaching second-run houses, it found it’s audience, and word-of-mouth turned it into a huge hit, Columbia’s biggest to date.

Colbert was so skeptical that she would win Best Actress at the Oscars, she apparently didn’t bother turning up for the ceremony, and the studio had to bring her back from a train station to attend the ceremony.

It Happened One Night iTunes Review

The 1930 production code began being enforced almost immediately after this feature completed.

In short, it looks very good. The title sequence is zoom boxed, but the feature expands to occupy the full 4:3 portion of the 16:9 frame. Grain is present throughout as you would expect from a 1934 feature. Optical effects like fades and wipes are wonderfully obvious due to the increase in grain.

There is some minor artifacting with the average bitrate being a little bit stingy at 3.9 Mbps. Peaks run high as 12.8 Mbps, but some sequences drop as low as 0.5 Mbps.

Audio is clear, and although encoded as a stereo track is obviously monophonic.

Conclusion

Gable has a ‘word’ with the driver of the bus.

Great: 5 out of 5. The iTunes HD 1080p picture looks great. I can only hope that the Blu-ray looks as good. Highly recommended.

iTunes 1080p Screenshots

Now that’s an entrance !

Bedding down for the night in a haystack.

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