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IMDbPro

Bringing Up Baby

  • 19381938
  • PassedPassed
  • 1h 42m
IMDb RATING
7.8/10
63K
YOUR RATING
Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Home Video Trailer from Warner Home Video
Play trailer1:38
1 Video
99+ Photos
Comedy
While trying to secure a $1 million donation for his museum, a befuddled paleontologist is pursued by a flighty and often irritating heiress and her pet leopard, Baby.While trying to secure a $1 million donation for his museum, a befuddled paleontologist is pursued by a flighty and often irritating heiress and her pet leopard, Baby.While trying to secure a $1 million donation for his museum, a befuddled paleontologist is pursued by a flighty and often irritating heiress and her pet leopard, Baby.
IMDb RATING
7.8/10
63K
YOUR RATING
    • Howard Hawks
    • Dudley Nichols(screen play)
    • Hagar Wilde(screen play)
  • Stars
    • Katharine Hepburn
    • Cary Grant
    • Charles Ruggles
    • Howard Hawks
    • Dudley Nichols(screen play)
    • Hagar Wilde(screen play)
  • Stars
    • Katharine Hepburn
    • Cary Grant
    • Charles Ruggles
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 321User reviews
    • 112Critic reviews
    • 91Metascore
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Awards

    Videos1

    Bringing Up Baby
    Trailer 1:38
    Watch Bringing Up Baby

    Photos165

    Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby (1938)
    Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and Asta in Bringing Up Baby (1938)
    Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and Nissa the Leopard in Bringing Up Baby (1938)
    Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby (1938)
    Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and Nissa the Leopard in Bringing Up Baby (1938)
    Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby (1938)
    Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Walter Catlett, D'Arcy Corrigan, and Pat O'Malley in Bringing Up Baby (1938)
    722-1023 Katharine Hepburn in "Bringing Up Baby" 1938 RKO
    722-1102 Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in "Bringing Up Baby 1938 MPTV
    Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Asta, and Nissa the Leopard in Bringing Up Baby (1938)
    Cary Grant, Walter Catlett, George Irving, May Robson, and Virginia Walker in Bringing Up Baby (1938)
    Nissa the Leopard in Bringing Up Baby (1938)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Katharine Hepburn
    Katharine Hepburn
    • Susan Vance
    Cary Grant
    Cary Grant
    • David Huxley
    Charles Ruggles
    Charles Ruggles
    • Major Applegate
    • (as Charlie Ruggles)
    Walter Catlett
    Walter Catlett
    • Slocum
    Barry Fitzgerald
    Barry Fitzgerald
    • Mr. Gogarty
    May Robson
    May Robson
    • Aunt Elizabeth
    Fritz Feld
    Fritz Feld
    • Dr. Lehman
    Leona Roberts
    Leona Roberts
    • Mrs. Gogarty
    George Irving
    George Irving
    • Alexander Peabody
    Tala Birell
    Tala Birell
    • Mrs. Lehman
    Virginia Walker
    • Alice Swallow
    John Kelly
    John Kelly
    • Elmer
    Ruth Adler
    • Minor Role
    • (uncredited)
    Adeline Ashbury
    • Mrs. Peabody
    • (uncredited)
    Asta
    Asta
    • George the Dog
    • (uncredited)
    William 'Billy' Benedict
    William 'Billy' Benedict
    • David's Caddy
    • (uncredited)
    Billy Bevan
    Billy Bevan
    • Joe - Bartender
    • (uncredited)
    Stanley Blystone
    Stanley Blystone
    • Doorman
    • (uncredited)
      • Howard Hawks
      • Dudley Nichols(screen play)
      • Hagar Wilde(screen play) (from the story by)
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Katharine Hepburn had never done any comedy before, and was coached by Howard Hawks and several veteran vaudevillians he employed solely for that purpose. As a former vaudevillian, Cary Grant was already well versed in comedy.
    • Goofs
      Susan says her brother trapped Baby while he was hunting in Brazil. There are no leopards (an African-Asian animal) in Brazil. There are, however, jaguars, which bear a passing resemblance to leopards. The animal shown is clearly a leopard (the telltale being the lack of dots in the center of each "rosette"), and correctly called such, even if the continent of origin is incorrectly named.
    • Quotes

      David Huxley: Now it isn't that I don't like you, Susan, because, after all, in moments of quiet, I'm strangely drawn toward you, but - well, there haven't been any quiet moments.

    • Alternate versions
      Some scenes were cut for the German theatrical release. In 1992 the German ZDF TV reconstructed the missing scenes but the German voice actors/actress who dubbed the movie were no longer available. Thus the reconstructed version changes between the existing dubbed scenes and English-speaking scenes with German subtitles. However, the additional scenes are also from a different print, resulting in a much lesser contrast.
    • Connections
      Featured in The 42nd Annual Academy Awards (1970)
    • Soundtracks
      I Can't Give You Anything but Love
      (1928) (uncredited)

      Words by Dorothy Fields

      Music by Jimmy McHugh

      Played as background music very often throughout the film

      Sung a cappella by Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant

    User reviews321

    Review
    Review
    Featured review
    10/10
    Magnificent, joyous japery.
    "Bringing Up Baby" is a film I unconditionally love; it is so utterly sublime a comedy that I was truly sighing, awed, 'it can't get better than this...' at many points. Yet it regularly does; Hawks keeps the momentum going majestically; it is one incredibly surreal, bizarre tangent going off unexpectedly into another, at every juncture. He photographs and presents his actors in the most charming and amusing possible ways, and the film is certainly a more leisurely, perfectly pitched film than "His Girl Friday", which I nonetheless admire. There is a beauty in the photography and simple choice of perspectives and angles that matches the

    There is not one actress in the annals of film who I adore more than Katharine Hepburn; she is a compelling performer, of great charm, intelligence and wit; of very real, idiosyncratic looks that to this eye are beautiful, vivacious, impish. In "Bringing Up Baby" her Susan Vance is a very interesting diversion from her more usual type of character - the slightly superior, in-control ice maiden, as shown in say "The Philadelphia Story". She is phenomenal in that film, yet here beguiling in a completely different fashion, playing a slightly scatterbrained, sprightly, charmingly delinquent woman, who seems to have no control over anything; least of all her feelings for Grant. Her giddy, breathless exuberance and anarchic helplessness are really endearing; it's a wonderful film that stretches out the credulity of Grant's wonderfully straight-laced character's resistance to Miss Vance. The ending is a gorgeous, satisfying pay-off, as he finally gives way, as would we all! It's a charming, suitable ending that rectifies the slight fall-off of the preceding jail section of the film. That is very amusing, but in a more predictable, slightly laboured way. In stark contrast to the first 70-80 minutes of the film, which amounts to about the finest sustained American comedy I have seen of that length - "Way Out West" and "Duck Soup" being shorter in total.

    Cary Grant, truly an institution of a comedic player, is very different to his more remembered persona of later years. It's remarkable to see this absurd little man, bespectacled, unworldly and cutting an orthodox figure played so perfectly by the suave Grant. This is gleefully played on with the sublime scene where Hepburn and Grant are trying to catch the leopard - Kate butterfly net in hand! She accidentally happens to break his glasses and is even more taken with him without them... The tension between how we usually remember Grant and the character he is playing here does add an extra layer of amusement to the film. Need I really add that the rest of the film's company are note perfect? Charles Ruggles, Barry Fitzgerald and many more really give the perfectly matched stars a fine backdrop.

    I shan't spoil too much of this heady, sublimely silly film... just go and watch it and see Howard Hawks, a master craftsman, at his best - there are no pretensions but making a quite wonderful character comedy - and Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant on insurmountable form. With these delightful stars and anarchic, scintillating comic material, what we have on our hands is an unutterably fine film, one of my very favourites of all time. Where else are you going to get such plot threads running simultaneously as: a hunt for a rare archeological find buried by a dog, an absurd upper-middle-class family dinner and an escaped leopard?

    Rating:- *****/*****
    helpful•95
    33
    • HenryHextonEsq
    • Jan 31, 2003

    FAQ5

    • What is 'Bringing Up Baby' about?
    • Is 'Bringing Up Baby' based on a book?
    • What does Susan mean by "I was born on the side of a hill"?

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • February 18, 1938 (United States)
      • United States
      • English
    • Also known as
    • Filming locations
      • Arthur Ranch, Malibu, California, USA
    • Production company
      • RKO Radio Pictures
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

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    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

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    • 1 hour 42 minutes
      • Black and White

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