Details

Release year: 1934

Storyline

A rogue reporter trailing a runaway heiress for a big story joins her on a bus heading from Florida to New York and they end up stuck with each other when the bus leaves them behind at one of the stops along the way.

Top credits

Directors

Frank Capra

Writers

Cast

Clark Gable — Peter Warne
Claudette Colbert — Ellie Andrews
Walter Connolly — Alexander Andrews
Roscoe Karns — Oscar Shapeley

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Awards

5 wins & 0 nominations

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Did you know

• Clark Gable gave the Oscar he won for his performance in this movie to a child who admired it, telling him it was the winning of the statue that had mattered, not owning it. The child returned the Oscar to the Gable family after Clark's death.

• Columbia did not have much faith in the film and released it without much fanfare and little advertising. It was quickly pushed out to secondary theaters where it suddenly became a runaway success, and eventually became Columbia's biggest hit to date.

• It Happened One Night (1934) became the first film to perform a "clean sweep" of the top five Academy Award categories, known as the Oscar "grand slam": Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay. This feat would later be duplicated by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) in 1976 and The Silence of the Lambs (1991) in 1992. However, It Happened One Night is the only one not nominated in any other category.