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.
- Awards
- 2 wins
- Major Applegate
- (as Charlie Ruggles)
- Minor Role
- (uncredited)
- Mrs. Peabody
- (uncredited)
- George the Dog
- (uncredited)
- David's Caddy
- (uncredited)
- Joe - Bartender
- (uncredited)
- Doorman
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThroughout filming, RKO executives complained that the film was destined for commercial failure. They asked Howard Hawks to insert more romance and less slapstick and told him to take away Cary Grant's glasses, but he ignored them.
- GoofsWhen Susan follows Fritz into the house, the shadow of the boom mic can be seen against the wall of the house.
- Quotes
Mrs. Random: Well who are you?
David Huxley: I don't know. I'm not quite myself today.
Mrs. Random: Well, you look perfectly idiotic in those clothes.
David Huxley: These aren't *my* clothes.
Mrs. Random: Well, where *are* your clothes?
David Huxley: I've *lost* my clothes!
Mrs. Random: But why are you wearing *these* clothes?
David Huxley: Because I just went *GAY* all of a sudden!
Mrs. Random: Now see here young man, stop this nonsense. What are you doing?
David Huxley: I'm sitting in the middle of 42nd Street waiting for a bus.
- Alternate versionsSome 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.
- ConnectionsFeatured in The 42nd Annual Academy Awards (1970)
- SoundtracksI 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
crazed infatuation. When we first meet him, palaeontologist David Huxley (Grant) is preparing to marry his co-worker Alice Swallow (Walker). Alice, we learn, is a rational, no-nonsense woman who sees marriage as a convenient and rational transaction rather than as an expression of love. As the film opens, David and Alice are putting the final touches on a brontosaurus skeleton that he has been working on for five years. The skeleton seems to be a symbol of the couple's relationship - dry, brittle, tenuous, old and, most importantly, dead.
Enter Susan Vance (Hepburn), whose wild anarchic nature is just what the doctor ordered. She seems, on the surface, hair-brained - and this may be true - but her ditziness is the result of being absolutely, utterly, ridiculously head-over-heals in love (at first sight, as is the case with most l'amour fou scenarios) with David and doing whatever she can to sabotage his plans to marry Alice. Susan's leopard, named Baby, is the symbol of her love for David, for the moment the leopard lays its eyes on him, it is instantly affectionate and follows him around, just as Susan does. Jittery David is, of course, terrified of the beast and all that it represents.
The leopard becomes an increasingly useful symbol as the film continues. At her aunt's estate in Connecticut, Susan releases another leopard its cage, thinking it is Baby captured by zoo officials when in fact it is a rogue leopard from the circus on its way to be gassed after attacking someone. With two leopards on the loose, the analogy becomes unmistakable - the wild leopard that Susan releases is David's libido, free at last after being repressed for so long in a loveless relationship. Indeed, towards the end of the film, when the wild leopard traps the host of characters in the local jail, it is nervous, terrified David who steps up and boldly saves the day.
This I suppose is just one way of reading and enjoying a film like Bringing Up Baby. i think it's interesting that the film announces its interested in exploring psychoanalysis with the inclusion of a character who is a Freudian therapist (Dr Lehman played by Fritz Feld). Psychoanalysis was, of course, very popular among Hollywood screenwriters between the 30s and 50s who adopted all manner of coded symbols for sex after Joseph Breen's Production Code so tightly reasserted control over what could and couldn't be represented on screen. But the fact that Dr Lehman's diagnoses are so far off tells us that the science of the mind is no match for the power of l'amour fou, which turns men and women into wild, irrational carnal beasts.
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Leoparden küßt man nicht
- Filming locations
- Arthur Ranch, Malibu, California, USA(Exterior)
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $1,073,000 (estimated)
- Gross worldwide
- $11,665
- Runtime1 hour 42 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1