Gateway Cinephiles

3-Minute Intro: Bringing Up Baby

Screened: October 23, 2007
Format: DVD - Turner Home Entertainment (2005)
Selected by: Libby

Today, Howard Hawks‘ Bringing Up Baby is regarded as one of the best comedies of the classic Hollwood era, if not the greatest screwball comedy ever. When it premiered in 1938, however, Baby generated mediocre ticket sales in Middle America. As a result, Hawks was fired from RKO Pictures, while star Katherine Hepburn was labeled “box office poison” and forced to buy out her contract. Baby’s riotous comedic style, its sly sexual innuendo, and its relentless pace were all years ahead of their time. The film’s manic charms were only widely appreciated decades later.

Hawks was, to paraphrase critic Leonard Maltin, the most famous director no one has ever heard of. He worked successfully in nearly every genre, and his filmography is a staggering catalog of classic Hollywood: Scarface, His Girl Friday, To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, Red River, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Rio Bravo, to name a few. Hawks’ no-nonsense, unpretentious style and naturalistic dialog were assets for a madcap, over-the-top comedy such as Bringing Up Baby. Blessed with a pair of firecracker leads, a crop of memorable characters, two charismatic animal actors, and a brilliant shooting script that ran 202 whopping pages, Hawks sets his cameras rolling and gets the hell out of the way. He avoids unnecessary cuts whenever possible, moving the frame around so as not to interrupt the breakneck pace.

Already a veteran of Hollywood comedies when he made Baby, Cary Grant was cast against type as an uptight, milquetoast scientist. His vaudeville background is particularly evident here, as he does all his own pratfalls and other slapstick stunts. Meanwhile, Baby was Katherine Hepburn’s first comedy, a risky bit of casting that paid off marvelously. Some of the animal special effects in Baby will seem obvious and dated, and the plot veers from implausible to outright baffling. However, the joys of this film are neither technical nor narrative. They lie in its supersonic speed, its crackling dialog, its perfect comedic timing, and the guilty thrill of watching two love-struck people wreck each others’ lives for our amusement.

Bonus Points: Watch for the first time the word “gay” was used in a homosexual context in a Hollywood film.