"Bringing Up Baby" is a rip-roaringly hilarious screwball comedy, one of the best ever made and by no less than the fast-paced talents of director Howard Hawks who already directed one of my favorite films, "His Girl Friday." Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn and a couple of leopards, a negligee, an archaeological bone-loving dog (!) are a hefty combination that may make one scoff at such a description yet, don't worry, this movie is too funny to care whether it all makes sense or not.
It is hard to imagine Cary Grant as an impotent, meek paleontologist named David Huxley yet here we are. An important dinosaur bone, an intercostal clavicle, is needed to complete a Brontosaurus skeleton. It is being delivered to Huxley's museum after years of arduous work in finding it yet a one million dollar donation for the museum by way of the wealthy Elizabeth Random (May Robson) is also imminent. There is also Alice Swallow (Virginia Walker), Huxley's fiancee who implies how she is keeping him impotent on their wedding day because his work is far more important. Huxley's life is already in a whirlwind and it becomes a cyclone of chaos when he inadvertently meets the sassy, carefree Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) whose aunt happens to be, wait for it, Elizabeth! From the near destruction of his car to helping Susan with a tame Brazilian leopard to finding themselves at his aunt's home and a series of comical random events, it is clearly evident that Susan is in love with Mr. Huxley from their initial meeting. She is also accident-prone as she consistently trips over objects and gets her glamorous dress ripped. Huxley is also a little accident-prone as he hits his head, trips over tree branches and just about everything else, falls into a pond (as does Susan) and gets his tuxedo ripped! Well, gee, who would you rather choose to spend your life with in the midst of such uncontrollable bedlam, humorless Ms. Swallow or spirited anything-goes Ms. Vance? (Don't answer that).
The movie is pure physical chaos and not a single steady shot ever has any character frozen long enough before they are engaged in activity. After the dog buries that intercoastal clavicle somewhere in Elizabeth's acreage, David can't sit still at dinner and follows the dog when it leaves his resting place. Again and again. It is all consistent motion and, as a formidable screwball comedy with first-rate pungent dialogue by Dudley Nichols and Hagar Wilde (the latter who wrote the initial short story) and a formidable director like Howard Hawks, it works perfectly and is perfectly balanced in rhythm, tone and pacing. Most modern comedies of the last thirty years, even the great ones, move more leisurely depending on the plot. With "Bringing Up Baby," it is all a bunch of chaotic situations that fester and become frenzied in spirit with enough breathing spaces in between so we can catch up with our laughter. Even at a fast-pace, the humanity of its central characters is never lost. Grant and Hepburn are just that supernaturally good and hysterically funny - the best romantic couple you might see in a romantic comedy in the 1930's with the exception of Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable in "It Happened One Night." Shame Hepburn never did screwball again and Grant (borrowing Harold Lloyd's horn-rimmed glasses) never played such a soft, square character like this one again. "Bringing Up Baby" is a national treasure.
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