Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

10/10

Starring

Cary Grant

Katharine Hepburn

Directed by Howard Hawks

This movie is outstanding, I have to be honest if you have not seen this movie, you have to. This is the best Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant movie I have seen till date.

The first time I ran into a palaeontologist was in Friends, and in Friends Ross was just as scatted brain as Dr. David Huxley played by Cary Grant in this 1938 screwball comedy classic. Screwball, a genre which has the female lead dominate the male.

Their onscreen chemistry is magical, and the screenplay for the movie is not something you see every day. The lines are more than comical, they were hilarious. The moment the two leads start getting in each other’s way you wish they never stop.

As the movie progressed, I was wondering if the script was going to have them married, and then they would struggle raising a child. I was wrong, Baby actually is a 3-year-old leopard that Susan’s brother sent her to watch for him.

The movie starts with an introduction to Dr. Huxley who is planning on getting married until his paths crossed with Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) on a golf course while he was meeting with a benefactor. After some series of events where Susan and David get to spend more time with each other, Susan took a liking into David, while David was ready to do anything to get away from her.

Susan’s decision to have David, takes this movie through a series of turns and events as I laughed hard watching both of them getting into each other’s way.

For me, the gem in this movie was Katharine Hepburn, I totally adored her in this movie and fell in love with her character immediately. You will too when you get to see and listen to the hilarious lines she had in the movie.

The movie production took too long to materialize, mostly because Grant and Hepburn had to ad-libbed their dialogues, which made them laugh and struggle to get their lines right.

Bringing Up Baby was not much of a box office when it was released in 1938. But as the movie got re-released, it became a success.

Furthermore, the movie is ranked 88th on the AFI's 100 years... 100 movies (10th Anniversary Edition) and it is ranked 14th on the AFI's 100 years... 100 laugh. It is also ranked 51st on the AFI's 100 years... 100 Passions list.

What a wonderful movie, one you will enjoy seeing and keeping.