Customer Reviews

Bringing Up Baby

5 star:		(69)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This movie was funny.Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn are a perfect match for acting roles in this movie. It is a great moive if you like Cary Grant or Katherube Hepburn. You can not go wrong with this movie.

Good movie though predictable, still worth a few laughs. Carey Grant is always a good remedy for the movie blahs. Definitely worth the watch.

Turner Classics:

It's been 6 long years since the advent of the DVD format and you have still not released this hilarious classic on DVD. PLEASE DO SO ASAP.

I purchased most of your classic titles on laserdisc, and I and many of my friends are anxiously awaiting them on DVD. What is the hold-up? These classics deserve to be seen by film lovers and all students of film in the current best possible viewing format:

CARY GRANT CLASSICS AWAITING RELEASE:
TOPPER (1937)
BRINGING UP BABY (1938)
IN NAME ONLY (1939)
GUNGA DIN (1939)
MY FAVORITE WIFE (1940)
SUSPICION (1941)
MR. LUCKY (1943)
THE BACHELOR AND THE BOBBY-SOXER (1947)
MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE (1948)

I saw Bringing Up Baby for the first time just under a month ago, and have since rewatched it about five times. Not only does it stand up to repeated viewings, it seems almost to *require* them; there's no way to absorb everything at one go. The best part is that the funny bits are just as funny on the sixth viewing as they were on the first, if not even funnier, because you've grown to really love the scatter-brained chatterbox Susan, and the befuddled, confused David.

It's impossible to imagine anyone else playing either Susan or David: Hepburn and Grant are perfect for their roles, and their characters are perfect (foils) for each other. Most people would consider Hepburn a dramatic actress, largely because of her later body of work (e.g. The Lion In Winter). But BUB proves she is a dazzling, charming comedienne, well able to go toe-to-toe with the funniest men in the business. Grant is wonderfully generous in allowing her to dominate the movie by playing the straight man, and he does so wonderfully as well.

Watch this for Hepburn, watch this for Grant, watch this for Hepburn *and* Grant... and, oh yes, watch it for the leopard. ;)

When this film was released in 1938, the great majority of filmgoers were young enough to have experienced the era of vaudevile, whose death knell had been sounded by the coming of "talkies" after 1927. For this reason the film was not so much of a hit as it is today. Considered old fashioned and a bit passe, these type of screwball comedies that borrowed heavily on vaudeville routines, no longer commanded broad appeal and the genre in general was soon confined to such lesser lights as Abbot and Costello.
Flash forward 65 years and BRINGING UP BABY is now acclaimed as a minor masterpiece. That it harkens back to vaudeville is no longer a handicap. More entrancing is that it features two legends of the Silver Screen in their early prime. Cary Grant, who cut his teeth on the vaudeville circuit, is amazing in both his comic timing and his ability to carry off visual gags. To see the Grant who went on to become the very symbol of urbane sophistication stumbling around the set dressed in a night gown is priceless.
Screwball comedy is a matter of personal taste. Some people prefer comedy that arises out of a certain situation, rather than comedy generated for it's own sake, such as is evident in BRINGING UP BABY. One weakness of the genre is that as one visual gag follows another in rapid fire succession, the viewer becomes somewhat jaded, just as a gourmet would feel after consuming too many chocolate bonbons in a single sitting. After an hour or so, my attention was beginning to wander because my brain was not able to connect to a discernable plot line. Although it was great fun to see Grant and Hepburn go through their paces, one's intellect was not engaged and in the end the film just seemed a bit longer than it really is.
It's quite an honour for such a film to be featured in a two disc package. I am a big fan of Cary Grant and very much enjoyed the retrospection on his career. When they made Cary Grant they certainly did throw away the mould.

"Bringing Up Baby"(1938) is the adventageous screwball comedy about a madcap New England heiress, Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) who, after accidentally running into stuffy zoologist, David Huxley (Cary Grant) is determined to land him as her husband. Not that David would notice. He's too concerned with acquiring a bone for his museum collection - go figure. But a gregarious little terrier named George (actually Asta from "The Thin Man" series) intervenes in David's plans, burying the irreplaceable fossilized bone somewhere on Sue's country estate. Meanwhile Baby, Susan's leopard, threatens the whole show by tearing up the scenery, as leopard's will do, after escaping from her cage. Naturally the whole mess winds up in front of a local magestrate, who lacks the ability to put two ideas together and come up with one coherant thought. The supporting cast is a who's who of crazies, including Charles Ruggles as Major Applegate, a pompous big game hunter, May Robson as Sue's dotty rich aunt, Elizabeth Random, and Barry Fitzgerald as the congenial scatterbrain, Mr. Gogarty. Director, Howard Hawks infuses his artistic mileau with every screwball gag in the book - and a few never before seen - illiciting the overwhelming and riotous laugh a minute that has made "Baby" one of the unique highlights in film comedy history. Not that anyone knew it at the time. On the contrary, "Bringing Up Baby" was widely panned by the critics and did only modest box office on its initial release. But hey, what did they know? Time has proven that "Baby" is the one to beat; a high water mark of comedic prowess that only the likes of someone like Preston Sturges could hope to match.

Warner's 2-disc special edition of this vintage comedy is a welcomed treat for DVD-philes. The black and white image is astoundingly solid. The gray scale has been impeccibly mastered from very clean film elements. Contrast levels are superb. There's a hint of edge enhancement now and then, but nothing that will distract. Fine details are fully realized. Film grain is kept to a bare minimum. Aside from the very thorough commentary track by Peter Bogdanovich, disc 2 of this DVD contains two feature length documentaries; one on Howard Hawks, the other on Cary Grant. There's also a couple of vintage short subjects and a gallery of trailers from other Howard Hawk's films. Very nice. Bottom line: "Bringing Up Baby" is a sheer delight and this new DVD expounds twice the good time in its beautifully rendered picture and sound quality from the good people at Warner Brothers.

"Bringing Up Baby" is a comedy gem in every aspect, because:

- The movie stars two of the finest actors of all time: Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant.

- The film was directed by Howard Hawks.

- Every single character is great, likeable and unforgettable.

- The dialogues are fast, furious and flawless.

- The timing in every dialogue and joke is perfect.

- "Bringing Up Baby" is packed with hilarious details, situations and characters from beginning to end.

"Bringing Up Baby" is definitely an essential classic. Few movies are as good as this one.

I give full credit to a bachelor uncle, Harry Johnson, for the fact that I became a movie buff early in my childhood. Throughout the Great Depression, as he repeatedly explained, he escaped from all the financial hardships by attending the local movie theaters on the South Side of Chicago. One of his all-time favorites is this one. You can thus imagine how thrilled he was when I gave him a VCR one distant Christmas, accompanied by VHSs of this film and It's a Wonderful Life. At Christmas and on his birthday, I gave him VHS versions of other films (e.g. Going My Way, Bells of St. Mary, and The Virginian). Whenever I returned to visit him, we would head for his favorite restaurant in Oak Park (Otto's) for a steak dinner, then return to his apartment to watch a movie. More often than not, this was the one he selected. We would settle back with lavishly buttered popcorn and a cold beer and again become enchanted by Bringing Up Baby.

Directed by Howard Hawks and co-starring Cary Grant (David Huxley) and Katherine Hepburn (Susan Vance), this is the archetypical screwball comedy. While golfing, Susan falls in love with David, a paleontologist. "Baby" is her pet leopard. Any summary of the film's plot cannot begin to suggest what a delightful experience it is to observe her pursuit of him, complicated at one point by mistaken identity (stay with me on this) when Baby is mistaken for another leopard which has escaped from the local zoo. Meanwhile, David (stay with me now) pursues a missing dinosaur bone which he needs inorder to....

Hepburn and Grant are brilliant, as are several members of the supporting cast, notably Charlie Ruggles (Major Horace Applegate), Barry Fitzgerald (Mr. Gogarty), and May Robson (Aunt Elizabeth). So many memorable scenes. Somehow, Hawks and his cast establish and then sustain zaniness at a high level of sophistication. Can it really be 65 years since this film first appeared? How remarkable that it has lost none of its entertainment value since then. None. Today, how much I wish I could see it again with Uncle Harry. He died years ago but I still have all those fond memories. He and they live on in films such as this. While seeing it again recently, I returned in time to Oak Park, to Otto's, and then to sharing it in a small apartment with Uncle Harry.

Bringing Up Baby was a very funny movie. Hepburn and Grant did an excellent job. Hepburn plays the funny 'blonde' and Grant is just at his wits end with her. Watch this movie.

I have watched this classic movie more times than I can remember and I have laughed each time. The jokes, the physical and verbal comdey, and the chemistry between Hepburn and Grant are a delicious mix. I enjoy older films, but this movie is recommended to anyone who likes a good comedy. It is infinitely better than some of today's lame comedies and gives you a fresh, enjoyable, side-splitting laugh.