BRINGING UP BABY
US, 1938, 102 minutes, Black and white.
Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Charles Ruggles, Barry Fitzgerald, May Robson, Fritz Feld.
Directed by Howard Hawks.
Bringing Up Baby was not such a success in its own time – however, it has become one of the classic comedies from Hollywood. It combines the madcap and the screwball traditions of the 1930s. Katharine Hepburn had been making much more serious films and was cautious about making this comedy. However, it is one of her great successes. She teams with Cary Grant with whom she had appeared in Sylvia Scarlett and was to appear soon in The Philadelphia Story. Cary Grant shows, once again, what good timing he had as a charming comedian. The supporting cast includes Charles Ruggles and veterans Barry Fitzgerald and May Robson.
The film is an eccentric comedy about an heiress who sets her cap at a rather shy zoologist. All kinds of complications ensue including the arrival of Baby, a baby leopard. There is also a dog who buries an archaeological bone. Then there is a real leopard.
The dialogue is also very swift and madcap – and can compare with the dialogue in such films as His Girl Friday, based on The Front Page, also directed by Howard Hawks. The screenplay was by Dudley Nichols, a veteran of screenwriting in the 30s and 40s.
The plot was used to great advantage and updated in Peter Bogdanovich’s What’s Up, Doc? with Barbra Streisand in the Hepburn role and Ryan O’ Neal as the shy musicologist in the Cary Grant role. It also has become a comedy classic.
1. The appeal of a comedy, characters, themes, farcical situations, throwaway lines? A characteristic of Hollywood comedy of the 30s?
2. The importance of the stars, their status, impact, comedy effect, the delivery of their comic lines? Their contribution to the film's success?
3. Black and white photography, the reliance on studio locations, specia1 effects?
4. The quality of the screenplay, the setting, of the characters, the buildup of the predicaments, the complication and the need for resolution? The style of exaggeration, confusion, happy resolution? Why do audiences enjoy this kind of comedy? How involved do they become in characters, lack of realism?
5. The character of David as portrayed by Cary Grant in his style, the type of absent-minded professor, his involvement and dedication to his work, the remoteness of his work, in the search for the prehistoric bone? His shyness and awkwardness? How real a character did he seem? How unreal, a comedy character? His relationship with his fiancee, the prospect of a wedding? The humour of the golf sequences, the encounter with Susan, the golf, the car, the restaurant? Throwing stones at the lawyer? His involvement with Susand and with the leopard? How did he let himself' become involved in these situations? His attraction towrads Susan? his participation in all these humorous circumstances, his air of bewilderment, his wanting to cope?
6. Tha presentation of Alice as his fiancee, the duty side of David’s character? The pressures on him? The nature of the rejection of him? The symbol of the dinosaur bones crashing as David accepted Susan and rejected the world of Alice?
7. Susan and the contrast with Alice? Katharine Hepburn and her contribution to this character? As a character in herself? Breezy and irresponsible, lacking a sense of right and wrong? At the golf, with the car, at the restaurant and the purse? Helping David and throwing stones at the lawyer? Her scheme in getting him to come across, the humour of the telephone call and the leopard? Driving the car along the street and the leopard following David? Their clashes, the tangles in the circumstances? The falling in love? The sense of freedom that she untimately gave to David? His saying that it was the best day of his life? What aspects of human nature did she represent?
8. How successful was the humour with the leopard, the singing, the car, the parking and the buying of the meat, the stealing of the car, hiding it? The confusion with the leopard from the circus? The humour to be gained out of the search for the leopard and the final encounter or the two leopards in the jail?
9. How successful was the humour of George the dog stealing the bone? The digging up the garden, David following George from the meal? The various details of the search?
10. The character of Aunt E1izabeth? Her first encounter with David in Susan’s clothees, the contrast of male/female? Her character in herself,that she was the rich benefactor? Her believing David to be mad, her behaviour at the meal, her relationship with the colonel? The irony of her being put in prison with the rest?
11. The satire on the presentation of the absent-minded colonel? His stories of hunting and yet his being scared? His being put in jail as well? The making of the leopard noises and the discussion about the cries? Too much ridicule or a humorous character?
12. The humour with the garderner, his being drunk, the encounter with the leopard? Jail?
13. How humorous was the putting of everyone in jail? The stories and the sheriff's inability to cope with them? The humour of Susan pretending to be a gnngster's moll and getting away? The arrival of the lawyer, of the leopards?
14. How humorous were the various details of the day, with cars, falling into streams, drying clothes, dogs and leopards etc.?
15. The humour and significance of Susan's arrival with the bone, the collapse of the dinosaur?
16 How funny was the film, the nature of its appeal, as representing the 30s, the insights into human nature, the psychological interpretation of the two women as aspects of David's own personality, the clash between duty and freedom and of his being liberated?
