Bringing Up Baby (1938)

"The love impulse in man," says a psychiatrist in Bringing Up Baby, "frequently reveals itself in terms of conflict." That's for sure. For a primer on the rules and regulations of the classic screwball comedy, which throws love and conflict into close proximity, look no further. A straight-laced paleontologist (Cary Grant) loses a dinosaur bone to a dog belonging to free-spirited heiress Katharine Hepburn. In trying to retrieve said bone, Grant is drawn into the vortex surrounding the delicious Hepburn, which becomes a flirtatious pas de deux that will transform both of them. Director Howard Hawks plays the complications as a breathless escalation of their "love impulse," yet the movie is nonetheless romantic for all its speed. (Hawks's His Girl Friday, also with Grant, goes even faster.) Grant and Hepburn are a match made in movie heaven, in sync with each other throughout. Not a great box-office success when first released, Bringing Up Baby has since taken its place as a high-water mark of the screwball form, and it was used as a model for Peter Bogdanovich's What's Up, Doc?--Robert Horton Amazon.com essential video

Best of the Screw Balls

Howard Hawkes can do it all. The screwball comedy was never better and alas never will be better. I suppose you could say this is a gimmick picture as they use a live leopard in a number of scenes. The Cary Grant brontosaurus has a small part as well.

Hepburn sees Cary the four-eyed prof and goes after the befuddled handsome man with everything a 1930's girl has. Madcap motor-mouth one liners rip away. Cary is embarrassed, disgraced, and horrified for ninety minutes till Hepburn cannot be denied. Amazing fast pace and editing for one of the finest comedies ever made; it can be watched again and again.
November 21, 2008

one of cary grant's finest...

This movie is absolutely hilarious! I just love Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn in this film! She has her own unique character in this film, she is a bit ditzy, but head over heels in love with Cary Grant's character. He, however, doesn't feel the same about her, but is reluctant to stay with her because she asks him to, or because she keeps preventing him from leaving! This movie is definitely one of my favorite old black & whites. November 12, 2008

Please!

This is so BAD! It's not funny, at all. It's simply not funny. No plot, laughs, likable charaters, nothing good. Skip it, skip it, skip it. September 30, 2008

Fun and frolic!

No one can be as simply comedic (and clean, too) in slapstick situations as Cary Grant & Katharine Hepburn! This is a good movie to watch when you just want to see ordinary people in absurd, goofy situations. It is great for 'family night' and it is great for an evening alone!

Have fun with it! August 25, 2008

WHY don't they make movies like this anymore??

I've seen this movie about 50 times and it NEVER stops being funny! It's clean, it's silly, it's just a GREAT laugh without any ugliness or violence like everything THINKS it has to have today to be good. Cary Grant is totally out of his "leading man" character in this movie and he's fantastic! This shows no matter what he's asked to play, he's up for the challenge. Katherine Hepburn is one of my all time favorites and as always, she's at the top of her game as a fast talking, often confusing (to poor Cary's character), EVER hysterical, rich girl who seems to have lost her tiger. One of my favorite movie scenes is when she loses the back of her dress and he has to walk her through a restaurant close to her back so no one can see her " accident!" This movie is defintely worth watching over and over especially if you've had a bad day in the "real world" and want to escape to a rip roaring good time that's BOUND to make you giggle and make that bad day melt away! June 7, 2008

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