“It Happened One Night” swept the Oscars in the five major categories

Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night, which won Best Actor and Actress at the 1935 Academy Awards.

Courtesy Everett Collection

It happened one night It was released in theaters on February 22, 1934, and 90 years later, it remains the greatest romantic comedy of all time.

Based on 1933 worldwide The short story, “Night Bus” (also the film’s shooting title), follows a spoiled socialite (Claudette Colbert) who, against her father’s wishes, boards a Greyhound from Miami to New York to reunite with her fiancé. Along the way, she meets a newspaper reporter (Clark Gable) who agrees to accompany her in exchange for the scoop. In true rom-com fashion, the two bicker but fall in love. Among her signature sequences are those in which Colbert stands along a path, lifting her skirt to entice a ride (she initially resisted filming it, calling the move “unladylike,” but felt the body double wasn’t up to snuff and relented), and another, set in a room Hotel, where Gable takes off his shirt to reveal — gasp! -There is no undershirt. Tradition has it that the spectacle hurt undershirt sales. (“That was the way I lived,” Gable later explained of his avoidance of underwear. “They made me feel trapped and suffocated.”)

While both stars were reluctant to step up a night Leaving the filming unimpressed—Colbert told friends, “I’ve just finished the worst picture in the world”—critics felt differently. THR He praised the film as a “swelling, startling picture” and a “charming, human and believable story”. The film was a box office hit, earning $2.5 million ($60 million in 2024) on a budget of $325,000 ($7 million today). At the 1935 Academy Awards, the film swept the five major categories—picture, director, actor, actress, and adapted screenplay—and became the first of only three films to do so. (1975 BC) One flew over Cuckoo’s nest And 1991 Silence Of lambs They are the others.)

The film began a series of successful collaborations for director Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin, although the partnership ended in 1941. Get to know John Doe. Annoyed by advertisements touting the “Capra touch,” Riskin reportedly threw a stack of blank pages on the director’s desk and said, “Put your damn touch on that!”

This story first appeared in the February 28 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.