Bringing Up Baby
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Bringing Up Baby is a 1938 American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks, and starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. It was released by RKO Radio Pictures. The film tells the story of a paleontologist in a number of predicaments involving a scatterbrained heiress and a leopard named Baby. The screenplay was adapted by Dudley Nichols and Hagar Wilde from a short story by Wilde which originally appeared in Collier's Weekly magazine on April 10, 1937.
The script was written specifically for Hepburn, and was tailored to her personality. Filming began in September 1937 and wrapped in January 1938; it was over schedule and over budget. Production was frequently delayed due to uncontrollable laughing fits between Hepburn and Grant. Hepburn struggled with her comedic performance and was coached by another cast member, vaudeville veteran Walter Catlett. A tame leopard was used during the shooting; its trainer was off-screen with a whip for all of its scenes.
Bringing up Baby was a commercial flop upon its release, although it eventually made a small profit after its re-release in the early 1940s. Shortly after the film's premiere, Hepburn was labeled as "box office poison" by the Independent Theatre Owners of America and her career would not recover until The Philadelphia Story two years later. The film's reputation began to grow during the 1950s, when it was first shown on television.
Since then, the film has received acclaim from both critics and audiences for its zany antics and pratfalls, absurd situations and misunderstandings, perfect sense of comic timing, completely screwball cast, series of lunatic and hare-brained misadventures, disasters, light-hearted surprises and romantic comedy.
