Review of Bringing Up Baby (1938) by Devon B — 09 Apr 2013

Cary Grant (in a pair of glasses) plays a milquetoast nerdy-nerd scientist who's been assembling pieces of a dinosaur skeleton for years. While schmoozing a rich lady's lawyer on the golf course, he runs into Katharine Hepburn, a scatter-brained (yet attractive) lunatic who brings trouble with her wherever she goes, especially to the scientist.

For good measure, they throw a leopard named baby (whose favorite song is "I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby") into the mix and you have what might be director Howard Hawks' screwiest screwball comedy, lighter-than-air and yet heartily amusing.

If there can be any criticism (and really, it's hard to take too critical a glance at something so lightweight), it may be with Hepburn and her portrayal of Susan Vance. The character is willfully ignorant, is mainly used as a means of advancing the comedic situations.

But in working so hard to achieve this ignorant arrogance, the film loses a little bit of it's momentum (and good will). It's only once the film really gets rolling that Hepburn's comedic inadequacies can be overlooked (in fact, the film is almost a tale of two performances from Hepburn, the overly affected and forced first half of the performance, and the more flowing feel the performance achieves by the end).

It's an unusual film to say the least.