Movie Review: Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Bringing Up Baby (1938) directed by Howard Hawks

Mild mannered David Huxley (Cary Grant) is a paleontologist about to get the last bone for a brontosaurus he's been building and about to marry his coworker Alice (Virginia Walker) the next day. David plays golf with a potential donor to get him to give his million dollars to the museum where David works. Right at the first hole, David runs into Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn), a flighty but intelligent young woman who manages to screw things up for him. That night, they run into each other at a restaurant where David tries to reconnect with the donor. More hijinks ensue. The next day, he winds up at her apartment where she is keeping a leopard sent by a relative. She wants to run it up to her aunt's house in the country and eventually finagles him into going along. More wackiness ensues as she tries to help him and he tries to get away from her.

This classic screwball comedy has all the usual elements--overlapping dialogue, physical comedy, awkward situations, misunderstandings, romance. The leads are great though Hepburn's character is a bit grating. That she falls in love with David is not so surprising but David's eventual falling for her is much less believable. Susan's character is a prototypical Manic Pixie Dream Girl, exhibiting the wild and frivolous behavior of a character seemingly designed to break a man out of his humdrum stupor, using both unintentional and intentional manipulations. I found her irresponsible attitudes very unattractive and his eventual admission of love inconceivable. But the film is very funny and moves at a breakneck pace with a lightness that sparkles. The overall charm and wackiness balance out the negative bits.

Recommended.