It Happened One Night Marriage Quotes

These words are King Westley's, and we can hear their hollowness as soon as he utters them. No one believes King Westley when he says this—least of all Andrews himself, to whom the words are addressed.

This is the deal that Andrews makes with his daughter in the film's first scene. Some deal, right? He's depriving Ellie of the right to choose her life partner; he wants to determine for her whom she can and whom she can't. And yet the film backs up Andrews's sense that King Westley's all wrong for her. At the same time, Peter probably wouldn't be Andrews's first choice of a hubby for his daughter, either, so the fact that he agrees with Ellie's later choice shows that he's evolved over the course of the movie.

Here's Peter on the annulment that Big Daddy Andrews has wanted from the first. He's gone to the office to ask his boss for $1,000—and to announce that he's going to be the lucky guy who'll wed Ellie. Some final ordeals still await the pair, but it's one of the film's great ironies that Peter ends up announcing the fulfillment of Andrews's wish.

King Westley uses the wedding as an excuse to perform a "stunt" that will get him lots of the attention he craves. This is, in Capra's view, no way to treat a swell lady like Ellie. And it's no wonder she finally gets the memo and flees.

Here Peter's mocking the headlines that have announced Ellie and King Westley's wedding. At this point, Peter thinks Ellie's still going through with that wedding. Luckily, she doesn't, and the film instead offers an unexpected image of "Love Triumphant": a blanket falling to the ground.