BRINGING UP BABY (1938)

Ira says

“The point is I have a leopard. The question is what do I do with it? You’ve got to help me”. Bulldozed via telephone into a cringing submission by Hepburn’s unwavering, steady voice, Cary Grant doesn’t have a choice. Way before there were tigers in Hangover, there were leopards in BRINGING UP BABY. And however old fashioned, at times sluggish, and repetitive Howard Hawks’ 1938 film is, its built around funny from start to finish and is one of the most vibrant, mixed up, crowded and fun screwball comedies around. Watching Hepburn and Grant on screen together is a hilarious experience but not just because of the humour in their lines or their delivery, because of the nature of their relationship and it’s really Hepburn, (famous for wearing men’s suits even in real life), who is wearing the pants here, at least on the surface. Grant, playing Dr. DAVID HUXLEY a mild mannered, dignified, somewhat nervous paleontologist (think an old school David Schwimmer as ROSS from Friends) working for the museum of natural history doesn’t know what hits him. About to get married, celebrating the arrival of a priceless dinosaur bone; the payoff for 4 years of hard work, life for him, couldn’t be more beautiful. Till he meets an odd, willowy and striking lady, SUSAN VANCE (Hepburn) on the golf course, who thinks its perfectly normal for her to be playing with his ball or driving off in his car.

I loved how matter of factly nutty Hepburn plays it all. Perfectly calm with a leopard sitting beside her, rattling her lines with a focused crispness, great timing and an absence of facial distortions (thank god), she is such a prolific and versatile actress, adept at drama, comedy, adventure and other genres that its amazing to see her inhabit roles with such ease. (Sure, the females in screwball comedies are strong but Hawks sure knew how to find great women comic talents and let them blossom. Remember the ultimate sex siren Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen prefer Blondes? She was hysterical and showed a surprising, natural flair for comedy).

Hepburn struts around confidently, with that famous flawless skin, sharp features and wave of short, curly hair and loads of oomph at what was only the beginning of her film career. She is and always will be, a quintessential Hollywood star, and you can see she knows it. But Grant, who moves easily between helpless and in control, holds his own with equal style. Subdued but energetic, his timing, underplayed, dry humour, mock anger, and defeated despair are the perfect foil to Hepburn’s silly, illogical, but endearing antics. There are some great moments between the two and while it looks like its always Hepburn, wide eyed, expressionless, innocent, who wins, the best part is that Grant lets her, falling quite willingly into all those traps. There’s a priceless image of him standing outside her car window trying to say goodbye, with a squashed hat on his head and those dark rimmed specs, and you can almost see that he already knows, at some level that this lady behind the wheel is driving his story and their inevitable union. “David, David, David, what am I going to do without you?” There is a victorious edge to that plea because Hepburn is written to be cleverer than him but there is an underlying sweetness to every argument between the two. So whether he’s dressed in a frilly bathrobe (Grant actually saying that he isn’t ‘gay’ is a bold little shocker in a movie from the 30’s. Good for you Hawks), digging holes in a garden in search of a bone, or sighing resignedly as he gets embroiled with her ‘unbridled imagination’, he knows, she knows and we know, that all that ‘conlict’ is in fact, all about the ‘love impulse’.

He loves her, she loves him, but this one ain’t about mush and love as much as it is about hair-brained schemes, and constant situational, slapstick and verbal comedy. And that’s were Hawks is on top of his game, keeping the energy up and the laughs rolling. You got a leopard named baby, a dog, named George (the two are friends so don’t worry), and an aunt named Elizabeth with 1 million dollars to give away. A major named Applegate, jungles, a circus, a stolen car and a whole lot of confusion at a jail when a lot of things come bumbling together. I loved the casting all around particularly the older couple May Robson as Aunt Elizabeth, the versatile comic actor Charles Ruggles as Major Applegate, and the almost catatonic, extremely funny, well trained dog playing George. Of course, leopards are part of the cast too. And they are pretty much in a class of their own. Hawks handles the chaos, multiple locations and characters quite effortlessly with clean edits and smooth transitions and I loved the style of overlapping voices, sounds and actions he employs, most effective when Hepburn & Grant are trying to pacify or serenade their ‘baby’. Word plays, mistaken identities, alias’s, physical comedy, its all here in this gentle and fun 30’s riot which is engaging right through to its memorable and funny final scene.

But there is a moment of dramatic irony early on in the film when Grant & Hepburn arrive at a house in the dead of night that sums it all up for me. As Hepburn marches ahead, Grant stops and in a moment of dismayed recognition says, I paraphrase, ‘But Susan, we’ve circled this house 6 times already in the past hour’. Without a moment’s thought or skipping a beat, Hepburn says, ‘Yes, but its still such a lovely night for a drive David’. Even while it takes you in circles, Bringing up Baby, with its diverse humour, echoes of satire, absurdism, farce and its great performances, feels like it was way ahead of its time. And all I will say is yes baby, it sure is a lovely night and the ride is what I’m there for.

Neha says

You can't appreciate the glory of screwball comedy until you've seen BRINGING UP BABY (1938). Adam Sandler made a career out of it but sexual gags and slapstick farce is a sort of remixed, degraded, populist version. HANGOVER, the most recent comic crowd pleaser occasionally gives the screwball genre a nod but BRINGING UP BABY with it's fiery pace and rapid fire dialogue along with the pitch-perfect comic timing of it’s actors and a taut script makes you feel like your zooming at 180 mph.

Director Howard Hawks (Scarface, His Girl Friday) bulldozes you with back to back, non stop, bizarre, comic encounters and quack house characters. On the mild side Cary Grant finds himself without his top hat and tux and in a pink, ruffled female wrap and on the wild side he finds himself behind bars, chasing and nursing after a creature named Baby who loves the lilting melody of the song "I can't give you anything but love Baby." And who plays Baby? A tame and not so little leopard. Like I said it's a strange kind of “out of the box” crazy!

So in a nutshell nerdy, bespectacled and good hearted paleontologist Dr. David Huxley (Cary Grant) is working to complete the reconstruction of a brontosaurus skeleton. But three big events are around the corner-He's getting married the next day to neat and stiff Miss Alice Swallow (Virginia Walker), he's meeting with museum financier Mr. Alexander Peabody (George Irving) for a donation of 1 million dollars and a precious piece of fossil bone is on its way to complete his brontosaurus skeleton. But first he meets a force of nature Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) a crazy, eccentric heiress who instantly falls in love with David and comes up with all sorts of inane reasons to be with him. In Susan's company things just happen but beat this- David finds himself on a cross country road trip with a leopard in the back seat and a stolen car. Flash forward to Susan's aunt's place and the misadventures are only just beginning. In a chaotic, comedy of errors David finds himself running after a terrier called George, chasing after an escaped BABY, in jail and in love. Phew!!! Bringing Up Baby packs in a whole lot of action and events that’s in part exhausting but entirely exhilarating.


Like I said, Hawk takes crazy to a whole new level but there clearly is a method to Hawk's madness and even a madness to his method. The plot's delicious randomness and bizarreness aside, I'd say you have to look no further than Susan's character and her wild card unpredictability, playfulness and wickedness to understand where Hawk is coming from and of course the actress in question Katherine Hepburn who pumps the unforgettable Susan alive. Boy they don't make them like that anymore! What a force of nature!!! What sublime comic timing!!! What screen energy!!! And in contrast to the nutty Susan we have a geeky, bumbling, awkward and confused David. Grant with his dead pan comic wit is just the perfect comic bouncing board for the mad cap Susan and with such livewire chemistry between the two, they sure make this a nuanced battle of the sexes treat!

There's a whole lot of physical comedy as well and while I’m almost always rolling my eyes at how contemporary comedies tend to overuse to overkill the impact of physical comic gags, Bringing Up Baby uses it more discerningly, never reducing its story to a series of laugh out loud physical gags. Instead the physical humor becomes an intrinsic part of its situational comic set-up’s which in turn feed into and enhance the larger, bizarre trajectory of this wild tale.


WATCH IT for the class, spontaneity and comic skill of the film's performances and for the control with which Hawk maneuver's the chaos yet keeping audiences consistently in splits. If you've ever needed some laughter medicine, of the old school variety this is it.