Review of Bringing Up Baby (1938) by Alison C — 01 Apr 2010

"When a man is wrestling a leopard in the middle of a pond, he's in no position to run.".

Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn are on scintilating form here, and I can think of no greater reccommendation for watching a film than that! Grant is David Huxley, a zoologist who finds himself unable to escape the clutches of Susan Vance, an eccentric heiress (played by Hepburn) who persuades him to help escort her pet leopard across country. There then follows a series of misadventures that is just too ridiculous for words but that's precisely what makes this film so special - it's joyful sense of silliness. Even the leopard seems to get into the spirit of the thing. Whether it's David trying to explain why he's wearing a woman's negligee to a startled old woman, or David and Susan following George the Dog in the hope he'll lead them to the elusive intercostal clavicle that David needs to complete his skeleton of a brontosaurus, it's an absolute hoot. The director Howard Hawks was a master at this sort of thing and marshalls everything at his disposal expertly. The way in which most of the cast wind up in jail is brilliant.