Bringing up Baby Overview:

Bringing up Baby (1938) was a Comedy - Romance Film directed by Howard Hawks and produced by Howard Hawks and Cliff Reid.

The film was based on the short story of the same name written by Hagar Wilde published in Collier's Weekly in Apr 10, 1937.

SYNOPSIS

The very definition of screwball comedy, and one of the sharpest, fastest, most out-and-out hilarious movies ever made. A nonstop profusion of comic disasters, coincidences, and misunderstandings ensue when Grant, as an absent-minded, straitlaced zoologist, meets Hepburn, as a flighty, accident-prone heiress. Grant wants a donation to his museum from a wealthy widow but he seems unable to avoid the woman's niece. Soon the two are rampaging through her estate trying to find a lost dinosaur bone, searching for a missing, music-loving pet leopard named Baby, and, inevitably, falling in love. Hawks, the master of many genres, lets the whole thing run riot without ever sacrificing sense.

(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).

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Bringing up Baby was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1990.

BlogHub Articles:

Bringing Up Baby (1938) (3)

By Laura Grande on Mar 31, 2014 From Pretty Clever Films

Director Howard Hawks had the uncanny ability to take a premise that appeared implausible on paper and weave it into a coherent narrative. Such was the case with his 1938 masterpiece, Bringing Up Baby — a wacky comedy with an outlandish plot, even by screwball standards. Stuffy, socially-awkwa... Read full article


bringing up baby review

By Joey on Mar 12, 2014 From Wolffianclassicmoviesdigest

... Read full article


“Bringing Up Baby” 4th film in Screwball Comedy classic screened February 11, 2014

By Stephen Reginald on Feb 4, 2014 From Classic Movie Man

“Bringing Up Baby” 4th film in Screwball Comedy classic screened February 11, 2014 When: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 6:30 p.m. Where: The Venue 1550 at the Daystar Center, 1550 S. State Street Today Bringing Up Baby starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant is considered a classic.... Read full article


Bringing Up Baby (1938) (2)

By Beatrice on Nov 16, 2013 From Flickers in Time

Bringing Up Baby Directed by Howard Hawks Written by Dudley Nichols and Hagar Wilde 1938/USA RKO Radio Pictures Repeat viewing #124 of 1001 Films You Must See Before You Die I enjoyed this quintessential screw-ball comedy even more than before. David (Cary Grant), a very square paleontologist, is en... Read full article


On the set of “Bringing Up Baby” (1938)

By Art on Mar 11, 2013 From Classic Cinema Gold

“Bringing Up Baby” is a 1938 American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks, starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, and released by RKO Radio Pictures. The movie tells the story of a paleontologist (Cary Grant) winding up in various predicaments involving a woman (Katharine ... Read full article


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Quotes from

Mrs. Random: I want you to meet Mr. Bone.
David and Major Applegate simultaneously: How do you do Mr. Bone.
Mrs. Random: (to David): No, YOU'RE Mr. Bone. This is Major Applegate.


Mrs. Random: Is that all you know about him?
Susan Vance: No, I know that I'm going to marry him. He doesn't know it, but I am.
Mrs. Random: Now seee here, if you're planning to marry him on my money you're very much mistaken. I don't want another lunatic in the family. I've got lunatics enough already.


Mrs. Random: [Mrs. Random thinks that David is crazy]
Mrs. Random: What are you doing?
Susan Vance: Hunting for George.
Mrs. Random: But why?
Susan Vance: [In a rush] David wants him, David loves him, David thinks he's such a nice dog.
Mrs. Random: Susan, he's a perfect little fiend and you know it!
Susan Vance: But David doesn't.


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Facts about

Howard Hawks said that he failed at making a good comedy here because of the characters were too "madcap", with no straight men/women to ground it. This comment may have resulted from his disappointment at the film's commercial failure at the time of its release, although many now consider it Hawks' best film.
Was voted the 24th Greatest Film of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
The script contains an expression that was very common in the USA up until about the 1950s that by today's standards is absolutely unbelievable and (thankfully) would never be used today. In the first scene, when Alice tells Cary Grant's character that "Mr. Peabody may possibly donate a million dollars to the museum", he responds "A million dollars? Say, that's pretty WHITE of Mr. Peabody, isn't it?"
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National Film Registry

Bringing up Baby

Released 1938
Inducted 1990
(Sound)




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