1934 film by Frank Capra
It Happened One Night is a 1934 American romantic comedy film, produced and directed by Frank Capra. Claudette Colbert stars as a pampered socialite who tries to get out from under her father's thumb and falls in love with a roguish reporter, played by Clark Gable.
The screenplay by Robert Riskin is based on the August 1933 short story "Night Bus" by Samuel Hopkins Adams, which provided the shooting title. It is considered a "pre-Code" production, as it was released just four months before the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America began rigidly enforcing the Hays Code.
It is seen as one of the greatest films ever made and was the first of only three films to win the "Big Five" Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
In 1993, it was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2013, the film underwent an extensive restoration by Sony Pictures.
Under the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, It Happened One Night is expected to enter the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2030 due to being a work published in 1934 and properly renewed within 28 years.
Plot summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.