It Happened One Night (1934)

Monday marked Team Movie Meats’ sixth Best Picture viewing and yet It Happened One Night was actually the SECOND movie from the 1930s chosen! All the other decades were like, “Are you joking me right now?” and the Meatheads were like “Aw hell naw!” We’re paraphrasing, of course.

It Happened One Night stars Clark Gable as Peter and Claudette Colbert as Ellie, arguably the fiiiinest on-screen duo you will ever see and nowhere near as off-putting as they look in the movie poster above. But while this can certainly be classified as a romantic comedy, the film can just as easily be considered a screwball comedy as well. For starters, Ellie throws a tray of food on the floor of a ship, gets slapped in the face by her father, and jumps overboard fully clothed … all within the first 2 minutes. The plot follows Ellie’s escape from her wealthy father and her fortune-hunter fiancé as she travels across the East Coast to figure out what she wants in life. On a bus, she meets Peter, a journalist looking for a great story. As was the case with every news reporter in the 30s, Peter has a snappy comeback or threat for everything, like, “Hey, monkey face,” and “Look your head off but don’t come busting in here. This isn’t a public park – I could near as take a sock at you!”

Eventually, the two start to take a liking to one another. (As much as we try not to give anything away here, it’s two sexy people stuck on a bus and in a couple motel rooms together for days – what do you expect?) The two have several hilarious experiences together, which include a fake marriage fight in front of the police, a debate over what a legitimate piggyback ride is, and using different hitchhiking techniques in hopes of getting picked up (watch the clip below this paragraph). The funniest moments from their travels come when good ol’ Oscar Shapely starts hitting on Ellie, telling her, “I could go for you in a big way. ‘Fun-on-the-side’ Shapeley they call me, with accent on the fun, believe you me.” But when Ellie finally gives in and professes her love for Peter, he shoots her down, knowing she will eventually have to return to her fiancé.

By the time she returns to her father, he can tell Ellie has fallen in love with someone else. And even though Peter tells him, “What she needs is a guy that’d take a sock at her once a day, whether it’s coming to her or not,” her dad knows the truth: Peter is in love with her and is a really great guy! (Apparently.) Do they end up together in the end? Since you have only had 77 years to see it, we won’t spoil it. Besides, as we all know, romantic movies in the 30s rarely had happy endings. The honest truth is after watching two consecutive movies that averaged 3.5 hours, the team was just happy to catch a comedy that was under two hours.

There are a lot of craaaaazy facts about It Happened One Night. For starters, the film was only in theaters for five days before winning Best Picture. It was also the first film in history (and one of only three to date) to sweep the five major awards: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Writing. The movie marked the first two Academy Awards for Frank Capra, of which he’d later win four more. And rumor has it that the movie helped influence the character of Bugs Bunny, as Gable mentions an imaginary character called “Bugs Dooley” and later speaks quickly while eating a carrot and talking with his mouth full.

Fun, huh? But did TMM agree?

JIMI: (1.9 Acting + 1.83 Visuals + 2.0 Wow + 1.7 Story + 1.9 Enjoyability) = 9.33

TRACY: (1.82 Acting + 1.699 Visuals + 2.0 Wow + 1.0 Story + 2.0 Enjoyability) = 8.519

RACHEL: (2.0 Acting + 1.58 Visuals + 1.879 Wow + 1.67 Story + 1.91 Enjoyability) = 9.039

TAD: (1.85 Acting + 1.4 Visuals + 2.0 Wow + 1.3 Story + 1.81 Enjoyability) = 8.36

NICK: (1.911 Acting + 1.7 Visuals + 1.88 Wow + 1.7 Story + 1.9111 Enjoyability) = 9.1021

FINAL: 8.87

Interesting score notes: The previous high score in TMM history was 8.26. For this movie, every single person’s score beat that mark, making Jimi’s 9.33 the new high score. … Tad, Tracy and Jimi all awarded their first 2.0s, leaving Nick as the sole member left who has not given a category a perfect score yet. … Rachel expressed her love for the movie with a near-perfect Enjoyability score, stating, “This movie had me from hello!” … While Nick now has the second-highest score in TMM history, slight points were still docked because he was scared of Gable’s thin mustache, while Tad docked points in the Acting category for the bus driver’s incessant “Oh yeah?” … And though Tracy gave two perfect scores, she mentioned the Visuals were still nothing like other Best Picture winners such as Lord of the Rings, and the story concept seemed beaten into the ground by now, even if it was the original one of its kind. So Tracy became the first Meathead to dock points for the movie being old as shit.

FAVORITE LINE: “Say, where’d you learn to dunk? Finishing school?” (Gable to Colbert as she dunked a donut) Honorable mention: “This isn’t a piggyback, you’re crazy … your dad didn’t know beans about piggyback riding.” (Gable while carrying Colbert)

RANDOM VISUAL: Maybe this counts more as “Random audio,” but the driver picking up the hitchhiking duo broke out into this ridiculous nonsensical singing that never ended and it … was … amazing.

MOVIE MEAT: Fine smelling, juicy steak sandwich with eggs and donut. (Our first breakfast!)

TIME OF DEATH: 10:37 PM on March 21, 2011

NEXT UP: Around The World In 80 Days (1956), selected by Tad

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Due to some crazy scheduling conflicts, it took almost five weeks for the Meatheads to get together to watch The Best Years of Our Lives, the 1946 Best Picture winner. Just think about all the wacky events that have taken place in between:

*Charlie Sheen went CRAZY!

*Mike Bibby was traded to the Washington Wizards!

*Valentine’s Day happened!!

After the debacle that was Dances With Wolves, nothing could revive Team Movie Meats’ spirits more than a three-hour film from the 40s, right? Best Years tells the stories of three American veterans trying to adjust to civilian life post-World War II. First, there’s Al (Frederic March), a fun drunk whose daughter Peggy (Teresa Wright) falls in love with Fred (Dana Andrews), the second serviceman. But there’s a problem: Fred is married to a nightclub performer, who sucks as a person but is smoking hot, so he knows all his buddies would mock him if he left her. (That’s never mentioned in the film, but ... really, come on. That’s what would have happened. You know it.) Once Peggy makes her feelings known to Daddy Al, he’s not sure what to think. Sure he is friends with Fred, but the guy is still married.

Along with Al and Fred, we also follow the story of Homer (Harold Russell), a sailor who loses both hands in the war, leaving him with hooks. When he returns home, Homer feels insecure around his longtime girlfriend and family, struggling to believe they still accept him after losing his hands. What makes this story even more fascinating is Russell actually did lose his hands in World War II, and his hooks in the movie were real. Director William Wyler saw a documentary on Russell (and other rehabilitating soldiers) and immediately cast him for the role. Russell’s inspiring performance earned him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor; he was the first non-actor to ever win an Oscar, and only one non-actor has won one since.

The Best Years has many enjoyable scenes, with the most intense coming at Fred’s drug store. Working as a soda jerk – no really, that’s what the profession was called – and with Homer at the counter, a patron insults each of them for fighting on “the wrong side” in the war. Homer rips an American flag button off the patron’s jacket, and Fred totally punches the commie in the face, destroying a glass display case in the process. Who doesn’t like to watch traitors take a shot in the jaw? Additionally, Al gives a drunk speech at a banquet that goes from inspiring to embarrassing back to inspiring just in time; Homer gives glimpses of how he functions without hands; and Fred’s wife does the arbitrary “I have to let people know how the title of the movie came about by saying it in the middle of a speech” move they always did pre-1950. So that was fun.

Since you have only had 65 years to see the ending, we will not spoil it for you. All we will say is it is a happy ending (which is important to know ahead of time if you’re going to watch a three-hour movie). Wanna know what else is awesome? Uncle Butch’s name in real life is Hoagy Carmichael. Classic 40s, right?

A near-crisis occurred halfway through the movie when the DVD stopped. After already watching 1 ½ hours, you can imagine how scared we were about the possibility of a scratched disc derailing the experience. To fix it, Rachel suggested we flush the DVD. When everyone else responded in a puzzled fashion, Rachel jumped up and yelled, “No one here has ever heard of flushing a DVD to fix a scratch?!” Turns out she first heard about it a whole week ago, so her shock was warranted. Luckily, a simple restart put everything back in control without a hitch, and we even learned one of the scenes is titled “Sweet Hangover” in the process. But would Rachel’s suggestion of a flushed DVD actually work? This question was asked on Yahoo! Answers in the past, and here are the community’s responses: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071230120818AAgFymU.

The Best Years of Our Lives won eight Academy Awards, including Best Actor (March), Best Supporting Actor (Russell), Best Director (Wyler) and, obviously, Best Picture. And it’s not like it defeated a bunch of crap films: other nominations for Best Picture included Henry V, The Razor’s Edge, and It’s a Wonderful Life. It was a huge commercial success at the time, making $20.4 million which in today’s figures would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $600 billion.

But just ‘cause the Academy loved it doesn’t mean the Meatheads did! So how did they rate it?

JIMI: (1.0 Acting + 1.21 Visuals + 1.45 Wow + 1.7 Story + 1.2 Enjoyability) = 6.56

TRACY: (1.45 Acting + 1.292 Visuals + 1.56 Wow + 1.89 Story + 1.67 Enjoyability) = 7.862

RACHEL: (1.45 Acting + 1.5 Visuals + 1.321 Wow + 1.29 Story + 1.4 Enjoyability) = 6.961

TAD: (1.45 Acting + 1.1 Visuals + 1.321 Wow + 1.78 Story + 1.48 Enjoyability) = 7.131

NICK: (1.321 Acting + 1.321 Visuals + 1.321 Wow + 1.5 Story + 1.4321 Enjoyability) = 6.8951

FINAL: 7.081

Interesting score notes: Tracy enjoyed the story saying it “didn’t feel contrived”, and her overall score of 7.862 is her highest score yet, proving this very well may be the best year of HER life. … Nick was a little “1.321-happy” with his first three scores, but perhaps he helped hypnotize Tad and Rachel, who followed suit in the Wow Factor category. Nick also finished with the first four-decimal score thus far. … For the second time in three films, Jimi had the lowest overall score. Still, his 6.56 is significantly higher than his TMM record-low score of 3.55 for An American in Paris.

FAVORITE LINE: “It is peculiarly appropriate that we meet here tonight to honor one who has valiantly fought for that freedom.” (Milton) Apparently it was so appropriate, it was peculiar. Try to say “peculiarly appropriate” three times fast. See, you can’t!

Honorable mention: “Just a few years of normal growth – don’t you approve?” (Peggy, in response to Al barely recognizing her years later.)

RANDOM VISUAL: The dance party where everyone was crammed so tightly between the tables there was no room to dance. This was a friggin’ Best Picture winner – you couldn’t cough up a couple bucks for a bigger room? Or, let’s see, get rid of 80 extras?

MOVIE MEAT: Post-World War II bomb shelter moon food and spam. Obviously.

TIME OF DEATH: 12:03 AM on March 15, 2011

NEXT MOVIE: It Happened One Night (1934), selected by Rachel

(That’s Nick’s belly poking in from the right – he’s gaining weight for a new puppetry role!)