It Happened One Night And Maude

What we think of as the romantic comedy genre was birthed in conjunction with the advent of sound on film. A subset of comedy, the romantic comedy has been through quite the evolution from its beginnings in the 1930s to the present day shaping our culture, I would argue, more than any other genre. While these two films, It Happened One Night and Harold and Maude, are staggeringly different in their formulas, one being classical and one being of the modernist period, they are thematically linked, encompassed by the romantic comedy genre showing how the genre and society's view of romance had evolved in just the thirty-seven years between their releases. The conventions of the romantic comedy are tried and true. First and foremost, of the standard …show more content…
Romantic comedies usually take place in an urban setting, often to give the feeling of hopelessness that a character would ever find a romantic partner in such a large population. The female protagonist is usually adorably flawed with a nice disposition and most often in some sort of writing based profession, financially stable in a way that’s non-threatening to men’s assumed dominance. Scenes involving weddings near the end of the films are common as well as a grandiose gesture of love, such as a big speech usually given by the man. Aside from the wedding at the end of It Happened One Night, these stereotypical iconographies are not truly at play in either film, most likely due to the fact that It Happened One Night was one of the originals and Harold and Maude was such a takeaway from the genre …show more content…
There is a meet cute, an initial hatred between the couple, the miscommunication which leads to a complicating circumstance to overcome, the redemption of a secondary character (Ellie’s father), the wedding complete with the runaway bride, and the fairytale ending in which true love overcomes and conquers all. All the elements of a romantic comedy are at play. While it’s counterpart Harold and Maude is of the modernist era. Thematically this is reflected through the journey both characters take, specifically Harold to find meaning, as he begins the film fighting his expected obligations to marry, daunting a dark wardrobe, and constantly playing with suicide until throughout the film he is reborn through Maude and comes out the other side wearing linens, playing the banjo, loving Maude, and wanting to live, at the end literally trashing the symbol of his obsession with death, his