Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Director:

Howard Hawks

Writers:

Dudley Nichols (screenplay) &
Hagar Wilde (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

18 February 1938 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance

Plot:

David Huxley is waiting to get a bone he needs for his museum collection. Through a series of strange circumstances...

Plot Keywords:

Bone | Leopard | Mistaken Identity | Museum | Screwball Comedy

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Katharine Hepburn	...	Susan Vance
Cary Grant	...	Dr. David Huxley
Charles Ruggles	...	Maj. Horace Applegate (as Charlie Ruggles)
Walter Catlett	...	Constable Slocum
Barry Fitzgerald	...	Aloysius Gogarty
May Robson	...	Aunt Elizabeth Random
Fritz Feld	...	Dr. Fritz Lehman
Leona Roberts	...	Hannah Gogarty
George Irving	...	Alexander Peabody
Tala Birell	...	Mrs. Lehman
Virginia Walker	...	Alice Swallow
John Kelly	...	Elmer

Runtime:

102 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Victor System)

Certification:

UK:U | Canada:PG (Ontario) | Canada:G (video rating) | Finland:S | Germany:12 | Sweden:Btl | USA:Approved (PCA #3752) | Argentina:Atp | Portugal:M/6 (DVD rating)

Company:

RKO Radio Pictures

Trivia:

David's response to Aunt Elizabeth asking him why he is wearing a woman's dressing gown ("Because I just went gay all of a sudden!") is considered by many film historians to be the first use of the word "gay" in its roughly modern sense (as opposed to its archaic meaning of "happy, carefree") in an American studio film. Among homosexuals, the word first came into its current use during the 1920s or possibly even earlier, though it was not widely known by heterosexuals as a slang term for homosexuals until the late 1960s. The line was not in the original shooting script for the film; it was an ad lib from Cary Grant himself.

Goofs:

Continuity: When David and Susan first meet on the golf course, Grant is holding his club in one shot and then not in the next. The caddy behind also goes from holding a club and not in the same shots.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Prof. LaTouche: Morning, Miss Alice. My watch is...
Alice Swallow: Shh. Dr. Huxley is thinking.

Movie Connections:

References Steamboat Willie (1928)

Soundtrack:

I Can't Give You Anything but Love

Classic Screwball Comedy

Maybe the prototypical example of the breed, in fact. Zoologist Grant (we'd call him a paleontologist nowadays) goes to a golf course to try to wrangle money out of a potential donor: along the way he meets up with Katherine Hepburn, and they have all sorts of wacky misadventures.

Grant's great, though it's not a typical role for him -- he's uptight, buttoned down, smothered. He's clearly the superego character, straitlaced and repressed and anti-life (it's no accident he works with bones). Hepburn was never lovelier than she was here -- she's the id character, all action and movement. There's a dedicated minority of people who hate this movie, mostly I think because they see the things Hepburn's character does as cruel. That's the point. Hepburn's not supposed to be nice -- she's id. We laugh partly because Grant needs to be loosened up, but partly because some of Hepburn's actions are shocking. Ideally, we should be in the same position as Grant in the movie: half-attracted, half-afraid.

Great "rat-a-tat" dialog in the classic Hollywood tradition. I can't think of many screenwriters today who could deliver such dialog. Highly recommended, one of the great Hollywood comedies.