Summary
We see a boat in the water. Onboard, one of the crew members tells the captain about the fact that the captain’s daughter, whose name is Ellie, has begun a hunger strike and has refused to eat for the past day. The captain, whose name is Mr. Andrews, decides to go below deck to talk to his daughter himself. Below, three sailors are gathered around Ellie’s door as she insists to her father inside her cabin, “ I’m not going to eat a thing until you let me off this boat!” We see Mr. Andrews trying to comfort his daughter, but she does not take to his affections. It is clear that she has recently eloped with someone named King Westley, and that her father doesn’t approve. Mr. Andrews insists that he intends to have the marriage annulled, when someone knocks on the cabin door. It’s a number of men who bring in food and, on Mr. Andrew’s prompting, set it down on a nearby table. He begins to eat in front of her, encouraging her to eat herself. Ellie doesn’t take the bait and laments the fact that her father basically kidnapped her from her own wedding; “Your idea of strategy is to use a lead pipe,” she says.
Outside the door, a group of sailors listen as Mr. Andrews tells Ellie that her new husband, King, is a “fake.” She protests, but he insists that she only married her new husband to rebel. When he calls her a “stubborn idiot,” she retorts, “I come from a long line of stubborn idiots!” As her father eats, Ellie continues to yell, asking her father to let her off the boat, and when he refuses, overturning the table he is eating on. He slaps her and she runs from the room, diving off the boat and swimming to shore. Mr. Andrews orders the men to catch her, but she manages to escape. Mr. Andrews tells one of the crew members to send a message to the detective agency with the message: “Daughter escaped again, watch all roads, airports, and railway stations in Miami.” The scene shifts and we see Ellie at a station hoping to get on a night bus to New York. Two men watch her and decide that she isn’t actually Ellie Andrews, because the wealthy would never ride the bus. An older woman walks over to Ellie and gives her a ticket and Ellie tips her generously before boarding the bus to New York.
Elsewhere in the train station, a group of men crowd around a phone booth where newspaper reporter Peter Warne is arguing with someone on the phone. Peter is talking to his editor and has apparently just been fired. On the other end, his editor tells him, “You wouldn’t know a newspaper story if it reached up and kicked you in the pants.” Peter maintains a smug attitude as the editor rails against his negligence as a journalist. Just then, the editor is interrupted by his secretary who informs him that Peter reversed the charge on the call and the editor will have to pay for it. The editor fires him once and for all and slams the phone down. Self-conscious about the crowd of reporters assembled around him at the phone booth, Peter pretends that the editor is still on the line and makes it look as though he is resigning and has the upper hand. As he hangs up, he emerges from the phone booth swigging some whiskey and shaking the hands of some other reporters. Peter is visibly tipsy and the other reporters escort him to the bus, exclaiming “Make way for the king!”
On the train, Peter goes to sit down in the back but notices several stacks of newspapers obstructing him from sitting down. When the bus driver won’t move them, Peter begins throwing them out the window and onto the street. The driver becomes upset and scolds Peter for doing so, to which Peter responds, “I never did like the idea of sitting on newspapers. I did it once and all the headlines came off on my white pants…No one ever did buy a paper that day. They just followed me around and read the news on the seat of my pants.” As he and the driver argue, Ellie inches past them to the back row of the bus. As the dim-witted driver plies Peter, Peter makes jokes at his expense and the bus erupts in laughter. The bus driver goes back to the front of the bus and Peter finds that Ellie has taken his seat in the back. He tells her to “scram,” and when she doesn’t he takes a seat beside her, ordering her to move over. He sarcastically asks if she wants him to put her bag in the luggage compartment, and she rolls her eyes and does it herself. As she puts the bag in the compartment, the bus begins to move and she falls into his lap. “Next time you drop by, bring your folks,” he jokes, and she sits back down, looking irritated. As the bus makes its way down the road, Peter lights up a cigar and they sit in silence.
The scene shifts and we see the bus making a stop for 15 minutes. Peter watches as Ellie leans up against the bus and smokes a cigarette. She notices him watching her and rolls her eyes. Suddenly, Peter spies a man coming up behind her and stealing her suitcase. Peter runs after the man, past Ellie, who hasn’t even noticed that her bag is gone. When he comes back and informs her that he couldn’t catch the thief, she tells him, “I don’t know what you’re raving about young man, and furthermore I’m not interested.” Here he informs Ellie that her bag has been stolen and she gets immediately upset; all of her money was in the bag. Peter tries to comfort her by telling her that she can wire home for more money once they get to the next stop. “No I can’t!” she starts to say, but catches herself and lies that that’s what she’ll do. When Peter tells her that he’ll go and tell the driver about the theft, she stops him, telling him that he ought not to. “I don’t want it reported!” she yells, even though Peter thinks she ought to report the theft. She storms back onto the bus.
On the bus, Ellie takes an aisle seat two rows in front of Peter. He stretches out as the bus embarks. As passengers snore on the bus, a larger man falls onto Ellie in his sleep and she tries to push him off. Looking back, she sees that there is still a seat next to Peter, and resignedly goes to sit next to him. Peter sees her coming and pretends to be asleep, putting his hand on the seat next to him, so that Ellie has to move it into his lap. The two of them fall asleep next to each other, vigilant not to touch. The scene shifts and we see the bus arriving in Jacksonville, where they have a half an hour for breakfast. The camera pans from the front of the bus to the back row, where Ellie is now asleep, leaning up against Peter, her arm wrapped around his. Peter looks down at her as her eyes flutter open and she realizes she is leaning on him. She is embarrassed and apologizes, but Peter assures her that he didn’t mind and that she looked “pretty” while she slept. He invites her to have breakfast with him, but she declines and tells him that she’s going to the Windsor Hotel. When Peter warns her that she doesn’t have enough time, that the bus is due to leave in 30 minutes, she assures him that the bus will wait for her, and tells the driver that she’s going to be a little bit late and to be sure to wait for her. Peter looks perplexed.
When Ellie returns to the bus depot, she finds that the bus left without her, as she is 20 minutes late. Peter is sitting nearby smirking about her naivety as she indignantly tells a conductor that she thought the driver would wait for her. Peter greets her, saying, “Remember me? I’m the fellow you slept on last night.” The conductor tells her that the next bus doesn’t leave for another 12 hours and Ellie looks dejected. When Peter hints to Ellie that he got off the bus when he realized she was going to miss it, she condescends: “Now listen young man, you needn’t concern yourself about me. I can take care of myself.” Calling her bluff, he hands her her ticket, which she carelessly left on her seat. “You’ll never get away with it, Ms. Andrews…Your father will stop you before you get halfway to New York,” he says to her, which makes Ellie pause. While Ellie tries to deny it, Peter shows her a story in the newspaper about her. The headline reads, “Ellen Andrews Escapes Father” and features a photograph of her. As she reads, Peter disparages her new husband King Westley, advising her to get the first bus back to Miami and calling King Westley a “phony.”
Ellie is annoyed and tells him she doesn’t need his advice. As Peter goes to leave, Ellie asks him if he’s going to call her father, and collect the money that Mr. Andrews is offering in exchange for any tips on Ellie’s whereabouts. In order to ensure that Peter doesn’t give up her location, she offers to pay him herself for his silence. As Ellie tries to make him an offer, Peter sizes her up, saying, “You know, I had you pegged right from the jump. Just a spoiled brat of a rich father. The only way you get anything is to buy it, isn't it? You're in a jam and all you can think of is your money. It never fails, does it? Ever hear of the word humility? No, you wouldn't. I guess it would never occur to you to just say, 'Please mister, I'm in trouble, will you help me?' …You don't have to worry about me. I'm not interested in your money or your problem.” He walks away and goes to send a telegram. The secretary reads it; it is a note to Peter’s editor claiming that he knows where Ellie Andrews is. He has it sent collect.
We see a bus driver announcing another bus leaving for New York. Ellie boards the bus, and yet again finds that all the seats are filled except the ones next to Peter. She sits across the aisle from him, as the bus leaves. Her seatmate turns to her and launches into a glib monologue, trying to make conversation. His name is Shapeley, and as he talks her ear off, Peter looks over skeptically. When Ellie makes a sarcastic comment about how verbose he is, Shapeley laughs and says, “There’s nothing I like more than a high-class mama who can snap ‘em back at ya!” Shapeley continues to hit on Ellie, and the more she resists, the more he talks, until Peter stands up and tells him that Ellie is his wife and that he’d like to sit with her. Shapeley is embarrassed and agrees to switch seats with him, making excuses for his sexually aggressive interludes.
Analysis
The film has a playful tone and immediately establishes that it is a light-hearted comedy, from the first few moments of the film. Ellie Andrews, the heiress to millions, is conducting a “hunger strike,” so that she can marry the man she loves. Her father witheringly discusses his daughter’s rebellion with an assistant on a yacht, while the sailors aboard the ship listen in with baited breath for the next development in the drama. When Mr. Andrews goes down below to confront his daughter about her impetuousness, we see a comically-large number of sailors crouched around the door, listening in as though it were a radio play. At once, the viewer is aligned with the main characters, while also maintaining a kind of distance from them. We follow Ellie’s story, and she is the protagonist, but we also are privy to the response that the surrounding characters have to her, which is one of piqued interest and voyeuristic investment. Thus, the lighthearted tone of the film suggests that the viewer will be privy to the foibles of the rich and famous from the inside while also maintaining an outside view of the servants and assistants surrounding their world.
Class is a major theme from the start, as indeed Ellie is a member of the upper classes, and is trying to escape its strictures. As an elite, she is somewhat cloistered away from the rest of the world, and indeed, her father’s disapproval of her lover, King Westley, stems from the fact that he thinks King is only interested in Ellie’s wealth. Such are the problems of the wealthy as portrayed in the film: they enjoy luxurious privileges, but are unable to trust those around them, and unable to traverse the boundaries of their wealth to do the things that normal people do. This doesn’t stop Ellie, however, as she dives off the side of her father’s yacht to swim to shore, before boarding a bus to New York, an adventure that no one would expect an heiress of her privilege to undertake. Ellie is determined to break free from the limits of her class, to marry whomsoever she wants, and to ride the bus just like everybody else. Her “prison break” at the start of the film literalizes and dramatizes her attempts to elude the isolating realities of her status as a socialite.
While Ellie is privileged and spoiled, Peter Warne is considerably less well off, but shares Ellie’s scrappy intelligence and independent attitude. A cynical newspaperman, Peter is at once Ellie’s match and her foil. Having just been fired from his job, Peter is unattached, unemployed, and floating towards his next adventure with nothing to tie him down. By contrast, Ellie has a squadron of her father’s assistants looking to tie her down by whatever means necessary. Both are transient, in-between, and unattached, but with entirely different stakes. Additionally, they share quick-witted and headstrong attitudes; both are determined to survive and thrive by their wits and their ingenuity. While their initial meeting on the bus is somewhat adversarial and unfriendly, it is precisely this competitive edge, the sense that they have each met someone who can give them a run for their money, that lends their connection a genuine compatibility. Even though Ellie and Peter are from completely different classes, they share a plucky self-regard that ultimately brings them together.
As headstrong, entitled, and confident as Ellie Andrews may be, she seems to have a lot of trouble taking care of herself. Indeed, her privilege has conditioned her to believe that the world will take care of her without her having to think twice about it. While she struggles to maintain her independence and elude the watchful eye of her protective father, her material struggles are few. Thus, faced with the logistics of a bus ride to New York, Ellie finds herself out of her depth. While she absentmindedly smokes a cigarette, a man steals her bag, and she doesn’t even notice until ten minutes later when Peter informs her of the fact. Then, when they stop in Jacksonville, she assumes that the bus will wait for her a little longer, so she can take a longer break than the rest of the customers. Of course, it does not, and when Peter greets her at the depot, he has her crumpled up ticket, which she left onboard. While she insists to the smug Peter that she can take care of herself and doesn’t need his assistance, we can see that this is surely not the case, that she is inexperienced being truly independent in the world. A great deal of this inexperience has to do with privilege, and the assumption that the world will meet her needs without her having to change her priorities or standards.
The film is all the more romantic because it takes place in transit. From the moment Ellie dives off the side of the yacht and into the water, she is in motion. As unglamorous as bus travel may be, the open road provides a sense of possibility for the wayward heiress, and an escape from her overbearing father and the expectations of society. Transience and the fluidity of travel allow for Ellie to break free from the social boundaries of the upper classes, and even though she encounters some problems along the way and is at first quite annoyed by Peter, she eventually grows more accustomed to her situation and her travel companion. Once she has escaped her ivory tower, Ellie is not a princess, but a more neutral subject, someone who has to find her way in the world. Ellie’s rejection of social expectations—her secrecy, independent spirit, and forward momentum—lend the film a romantic and exciting tone.
