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Critics Consensus: With Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant at their effervescent best, Bringing Up Baby is a seamlessly assembled comedy with enduring appeal.
Critic Consensus: With Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant at their effervescent best, Bringing Up Baby is a seamlessly assembled comedy with enduring appeal.
All Critics (42) | Top Critics (7) | Fresh (40) | Rotten (2) | DVD (5)
The enduring fascination of this 1938 screwball comedy is due to much more than its uproarious gags.
A perfect example of why directors (and even us brilliant professional critics) can often be completely in the dark about what works.
There is little rhyme or reason to most of the action, but it's all highly palatable.
Though it's almost impossible, try to sit back sometime and enjoy this 1938 Howard Hawks masterpiece not only for its gags, but for the grace of its construction, the assurance of its style, and the richness of its themes.
One of the finest screwball comedies ever.
The speedy, 102-minute film is a total delight, and the performances are so invigorating that it can withstand many multiple viewings without losing its sparks.
[VIDEO ESSAY] Howard Hawks's "Bringing Up Baby" is the go-to example of screwball comedy that critics and film-lovers reference most as the definitive model of the genre.
Howard Hawks's classic took the screwball cycle started by It Happened One Night to its dizzying, dazzling peak.
How sublime can movies get?
Bringing Up Baby's narrative and thematic directions have much in common with those of Shakespearean comedy.
Classic screwball comedy stars Hepburn, Grant.
Grant plays the timid Dr. David Huxley with the proper restraint and tics.
Katharine Hepburn's performance alone is dynamic in this comedic classic. Bringing Up Baby is comedy gold with brilliance in its ensemble. The laughter is timeless, the dialogue is crisp and, once again, Hepburn and Grant formulate a charming duo. 4/5
Super Reviewer
It is ironic that this enjoyable film flopped when it was still original and now is highly regarded as a masterpiece when it is obviously outdated and full of silly gags for today's standards - and despite her great chemistry with Grant, Hepburn is more irritating than funny.
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.
"Bringing Up Baby" sucks. I really have no idea what this film is about aside from the fact that it involves a leopard, a bone, and a really annoying lady. Maybe I played too much Temple Run while watching it.
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