An heiress is trying to run away and elope, and a newspaper reporter offers to help her in exchange for a story; what follows may be the single most influential film of the 1930s – after, perhaps, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Both films defined a genre: in one case, animated features; in the other, romantic comedies, as we know them today. It scarcely matters that neither was technically the first. Made in a Poverty Row studio which had low expectations for it, the film swept the Oscar®s: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay; a feat equalled only twice since.