Tag Archives: Clark Gable

It Happened One Night (1934)

Directed by Frank Capra

Screenplay by Robert Riskin

Starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert

In the history of the Oscars, three movies have won the big five awards of Picture, Director, Actress, Actor and a Screenplay Award: It Happened One Night, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Silence of the Lambs. It’s the rarest of the rare achievement, occurring only 3 times in 82 years – so rare that there’s only been four other times when a films leads won in both Best Actor and Actress category. Because it doesn’t occur every year, or even every decade, you’d be tempted to think that surely the sweep each film put on was the result of some sort of dominance on it’s part, that these three films were the only time that Hollywood got it absolutely right and marched home with the trophy. At tempting as that is to think, it’s not the case, as all three were really the product of circumstances, benefitting in some way or another from just dumb luck to do what it did. Continue reading →