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Film details
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Featuring
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Director
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Country
USA
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Year
1934
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Genres
Comedy Road movie
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Type
Film
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Category
Fiction
Introduction
“As buoyant and elegant as bubbles in a glass of champagne, it survives triumphantly because of its wit, charm, romantic idealism and its shrewd sketch of married life.”
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, 2010
Released just as the Hays Office was beginning to enforce the Production Code censoring ‘immoral’ movies, Frank Capra’s impish, daring comedy crackles with erotic tension. Claudette Colbert’s runaway heiress meets Clark Gable’s recently fired newspaperman on a night bus from Florida to New York (neither actor was first choice for the roles). They take an instant dislike to one another, but find themselves posing as a quarrelling married couple after he blackmails her into giving him a story.
Scripted by Capra’s regular collaborator Robert Riskin, this became the first film to win all five main Oscars, including best picture, cementing Capra’s reputation as a director as well as those of Columbia Pictures and his two stars.
The template of journalist and heiress becoming romantically entangled on a bus journey was recycled – with the addition of aliens – in Gareth Edwards’s Monsters (2010).
Cast & Credits
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Cast
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Peter Warne
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Ellie Andrews
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Alexander Andrews
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Oscar Shapeley
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King Westley
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Danker
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Zeke
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Zeke's wife
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Joe Gordon, city editor
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[first bus driver]
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[second bus driver]
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[third auto camp owner]
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[auto camp manager's wife]
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[gas station attendant]
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[Lovington]
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[reporter]
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[Henderson]
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[flag man]
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[Tony]
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[drunken boy]
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[mother]
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[detective]
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[detective]
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[detective]
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[detective]
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[vendor]
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[Dykes]
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[boy]
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[Agnes, the secretary]
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[minister]
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[best man]
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[maid of honour]
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[prissy old man]
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[radio announcer]
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[society woman]
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[butler]
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[newsboy]
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[reporter]
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[reporter]
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[policeman]
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[policeman]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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[bus passenger]
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Credits
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Direction:
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Directed by
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[Assistant Director]
Rights:
Production:
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Presents
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[Executive Producer]
Writing:
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Screen Play by
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Based on the short story by
Photography:
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Photography
Editing:
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Film Editor
Design:
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[Art Director]
Costumes:
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[Costumes]
Music:
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Musical Director
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[Orchestration]
Sound:
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[Sound Engineer]
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Sound System
Publicity:
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[General Press Agent]
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The Greatest Films of All Time 2012
Voted for by 3 critics and 1 director.
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