It Happened One Night, Frank Capra (U.S., 1934)

This here’s a screwball comedy that throws some real curves: most particularly a leggy Claudette Colbert and a shirtless Clark Gable. Cheeky Colbert plays a runaway heiress on a bus north to find her fiancé; instead she finds fellow traveler Gable, an ace reporter with everything but an assignment. The repartee is faster than a Greyhound on the interstate and the sexy innuendos barely outraced the censors, but Frank Capra’s Depression-era romp has no shortage of employable humor. Watch for the “Walls of Jericho” gag acknowledging that sheets happen. Winner of five Oscars, including Best Picture—that’s no laughing matter.

—Steve Seid

• Written by Robert Riskin, based on the story “Night Bus” by Samuel Hopkins Adams. Photographed by Joseph Walker. With Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns. (105 mins, B&W, DCP, From Sony Pictures)