February 09, 2010 10:30AM EST

Valentine’s Day: Classic Hollywood Style

“This is Capra at his best, very funny and very light…It set the definitive tone of 30s screwball comedy.”—Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

BAMcinématek is offering New York a sweet and savory alternative to modern-day Hollywood Valentine’s Day fare with a special dinner and a movie package. For 64 bucks, you can enjoy a 4-course gourmet meal at the BAM Café and see the 1934 classic romantic comedy It Happened One Night on the big screen. (If you are on a tighter budget, you can always just check out the film for $12.)
 
It Happened One Night, directed by Frank Capra (It’s a Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) is classic Hollywood romantic comedy at its best. Rebellious socialite Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) marries King Wesley, but her wealthy father has it annulled. Tired of her father's control, she runs away by diving off the family yacht in Miami and heading for New York. On the bus she meets street-smart reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable). They end up traveling together for different reasons: Warne hopes to get a great story, and Ellie needs his worldly expertise. Nearing New York, with their many adventures coming to an end, they find that they are reluctantly in love and afraid to admit it to each other. After she mistakenly thinks that Warne has run out on her, Ellie returns to King Wesley and the fun continues from there…

After filming It Happened One Night, Colbert said she had “just finished the worst picture in the world,” and Capra was very disappointed by so-so reviews of the film. However, the film was the first ever to win all five major Oscars: Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actor, and Actress! This feat has only been matched by One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1975 and Silence of the Lambs in 1991. Gable’s “Best Actor” Oscar statuette was donated to the Motion Picture Academy after it was auctioned off to Steven Spielberg in 1996.
 


In a 1934 review in The New Republic, an unnamed film critic wrote, “I am reminded that such a picture cannot be defined at all until we find a way of describing whatever it is that makes first-rate entertainment what it is.”
 
76 years later, this film can still be described as “first-rate entertainment.” And what better to accompany it than a “first-rate” 4-course meal at the BAM Café? The first course is a choice of wild mushroom fettuccine, lobster risotto, duck confit crepes, or a melted leek and Gruyere tart. Entrees include red wine braised beef short ribs, butternut squash and goat cheese ravioli, slow baked lemon scented Dover sole, or herb grilled quail. And for dessert there is warm chocolate fondant cake, pecan pie, apple dumpling pie, or an artisan cheese selection. Yum.

It Happened One Night plays at BAM Rose Cinemas on—when else?—Sunday, 2/14: 6:00 pm screening (dinner at 8:15 pm) & 8:15 pm screening (dinner at 6:15 pm).
 
Buy your tickets here.