Bringing Up Baby

(1938)

Directed by

Howard Hawks

Review by Terry Plucknett

This is a movie of Hollywood icons giving iconic performances.  This screwball romantic comedy, which was originally a flop when it came out, has become one of the classic original films of its genre.  Directed by the legendary Howard Hawks, Bringing Up Baby tells the story of an uptight zoologist (the legendary Cary Grant) who continually stumbles across a free-spirited, ditzy heiress (the legendary Katharine Hepburn) as they search for a dinosaur bone, a small dog, and a leopard named Baby.

The story is nothing new.  Boy meets girl, boy hates girl, girl fall for boy and follows boy around, boy eventually begins to love girl, and they all live happily ever after.  The thing that sets this film apart from the rest are the performances.  The chemistry between the straight-laced Grant and the fast-talking Hepburn is palpable.  They both give scene-stealing performances, but are almost always in the scene together.  It is hard to take your eyes off of Hepburn as she turns messes into disasters, while Grant provides the perfect foil to Hepburn.  It is a wonderful trade-off with the dialogue as spot-on as you can get in this type of movie.

With these two performances, it is hard for anything to steal some of the thunder from them.  However, a wild animal thrown into the mix on set with the stars is able to accomplish this feat at certain times throughout the film.  The title leopard adds a little more absurdity to the mix that seems to work.  It all gets a little odd and crazy near the end, but the dialogue and performances seems to make it not matter much.

A fun, fast-paced, crazy comedy with a few of the greatest actors in history on top form.

Rating:

# 1 of 1938