The best of the best: an Academy Award sweep of all five major categories is a rare feat indeed.

• Author: Gehring, Wes D.
• Position: REEL WORLD

IN U.S. FILM HISTORY (since 1927-28) only three movies have won the five major Academy Award categories: Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay (either Best Original or Adapted): "It Happened One Night" (1934), "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975), and "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991). Though any such achievement obviously is based, in part, on that old axiom, "pluck and luck," all three movies still maintain an aura of greatness.

"It Happened One Night" is a pioneering screwball comedy directed by Frank Capra, soon to be associated with populist "feel good" comedies such as "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" (1936) and "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946). The movie was adapted by Robert Riskin from the 1933 Samuel Hopkins short story, "Night Bus." Yet, from this lackluster name was born one of cinema's most romantic titles, "It Happened One Night."

The tale involves a runaway heiress (Claudette Colbert) whose wealthy father (Walter Connolly) is attempting to get her marriage annulled from a fortune-hunter. With little common sense (or cents), since the spoiled rich girl has left in a hurry, she takes a long night bus trip to reunite with her husband. Clark Gable plays an out-of-work reporter who recognizes her and the major story he has stumbled upon. Gable makes her an offer: he will assist in the escape if he gets an exclusive on the yam. Naturally, in the course of their Florida to New York misadventures, the two fall in love.

Among the film's seminal scenes, two immediately come to mind. The first involves the couple sharing a rented cabin, with a blanket ("the walls of Jericho") separating their twin beds. When Colbert is slow to leave his side, Gable goes into a tasteful demonstration of how men undress. After he removes his shirt, Colbert quickly retreats to her side. However, the revelation that major box office star Gable was not wearing an undershirt sent sales of that garment dropping around the country. The second involves a cocky Gable demonstrating all the slick tricks of hitchhiking (after their money has run out), although it is Colbert's lovely gams that finally get them a ride. During this scene, the handsome--but big-eared--Gable is eating a carrot while making with the quick patter, and this turned out to be the key inspiration for the "birth" of Warner Bros.' Bugs Bunny in 1937.

More than 40 years after Gable changed men's clothing habits and inspired the most famous bunny this side of Easter, Milos Forman...