Product Description

A wild & crazy heiress with a pet leopard named baby sets her sights on an absent-minded paleontologist & inadvertantly makes a shambles of his life. Studio: Turner Hm Entertainm Release Date: 08/06/2007 Starring: Katharine Hepburn Charlie Ruggles Run time: 102 minutes

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6803 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-03-01
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, Original recording remastered, Special Edition, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 102 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
"The love impulse in man," says a psychiatrist in Bringing Up Baby, "frequently reveals itself in terms of conflict." That's for sure. For a primer on the rules and regulations of the classic screwball comedy, which throws love and conflict into close proximity, look no further. A straight-laced paleontologist (Cary Grant) loses a dinosaur bone to a dog belonging to free-spirited heiress Katharine Hepburn. In trying to retrieve said bone, Grant is drawn into the vortex surrounding the delicious Hepburn, which becomes a flirtatious pas de deux that will transform both of them. Director Howard Hawks plays the complications as a breathless escalation of their "love impulse," yet the movie is nonetheless romantic for all its speed. (Hawks's His Girl Friday, also with Grant, goes even faster.) Grant and Hepburn are a match made in movie heaven, in sync with each other throughout. Not a great box-office success when first released, Bringing Up Baby has since taken its place as a high-water mark of the screwball form, and it was used as a model for Peter Bogdanovich's What's Up, Doc? --Robert Horton

DVD features
For its DVD debut, this Howard Hawks comedy looks far better than any 67-year-old film should. The print doesn't dazzle like Warner's usual Ultra-Resolution process (Singin' in the Rain) but has better contrast and crispness than previous VHS versions. Peter Bogdanovich provides the commentary track. The director has done several of these, but he's more inspired here, probably due to his excellent remake of Baby (What's Up, Doc?) and his past interviews with Hawks. Bogdanovich does something we haven't heard in a commentary: imitating the director answering questions about the film. It works since his impression is pretty darn good. The second disc provides a short and a cartoon from 1938 plus two made-for-cable documentaries. The newer one on Cary Grant delivers a comprehensive look at the great star; the older one is an episode from critic Richard Schickel's outstanding series The Men Who Made the Movies. This retrospective has plenty on the director, and should play well for casual fan and aficionado alike. --Doug Thomas

Customer Reviews

MADCAP SCREWBALL COMEDY...
This is a terrific, old fashioned, madcap, screwball comedy. Deftly directed by Howard Hawkes, the pace is frenetic from the get-go and never lets up. Starring Cary Grant, as a straight-laced paleontologist, and Katherine Hepburn, as an impulsive and beautiful heiress, this film is simply about as good as comedy gets.

The plot itself is simple. David Huxley (Cary Grant), a noted paleontologist, is trying to get a philanthropical grant of money for his museum from a wealthy donor. In his quest for this charitable gift, he runs into Susan (Katherine Hepburn), who, unbeknownst to him, is the niece and prospective heiress to his potential philanthropist's fortune. Once David meets up with this madcap heiress, his life will never be the same.

The film is noted for its highly improbable situations, its rat-a-tat-tat, stacatto delivery of lines, its frenetic pacing, and impeccable comedic timing. Toss in a missing dinosaur bone, a little dog with a fondness for such, a domesticated leopard (if there is such a thing), a not so tame leopard, a great cast and script, and voila, one ends up with a great film!

Cary Grant is marvelous as David Huxley, the straight-laced, befuddled man of science who is drawn into improbable situations by Susan. Katherine Hepburn is sensational as Susan, the airhead heiress whose hair-brained ideas just lead to trouble. Of course, Susan falls for David, and the games begin. In addition to Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn, the film has notable performances by Charles Ruggles, as big game hunter Major Applegate, Barry Fitzgerald as the hapless hired hand, Mr. Gogarty, and Walter Catlett, as Slocum, the criminally stupid town constable.

It is with good reason that this film made The Entertainment Weekly list of the 100 best comedies ever made. It is an assessment with which I heartily concur. This is a superlative, vintage film that is well worth having in one's personal collection. Bravo!

So Many Fond Memories
I give full credit to a bachelor uncle, Harry Johnson, for the fact that I became a movie buff early in my childhood. Throughout the Great Depression, as he repeatedly explained, he escaped from all the financial hardships by attending the local movie theaters on the South Side of Chicago. One of his all-time favorites is this one. You can thus imagine how thrilled he was when I gave him a VCR one distant Christmas, accompanied by VHSs of this film and It's a Wonderful Life. At Christmas and on his birthday, I gave him VHS versions of other films (e.g. Going My Way, Bells of St. Mary, and The Virginian). Whenever I returned to visit him, we would head for his favorite restaurant in Oak Park (Otto's) for a steak dinner, then return to his apartment to watch a movie. More often than not, this was the one he selected. We would settle back with lavishly buttered popcorn and a cold beer and again become enchanted by Bringing Up Baby.

Directed by Howard Hawks and co-starring Cary Grant (David Huxley) and Katherine Hepburn (Susan Vance), this is the archetypical screwball comedy. While golfing, Susan falls in love with David, a paleontologist. "Baby" is her pet leopard. Any summary of the film's plot cannot begin to suggest what a delightful experience it is to observe her pursuit of him, complicated at one point by mistaken identity (stay with me on this) when Baby is mistaken for another leopard which has escaped from the local zoo. Meanwhile, David (stay with me now) pursues a missing dinosaur bone which he needs inorder to....

Hepburn and Grant are brilliant, as are several members of the supporting cast, notably Charlie Ruggles (Major Horace Applegate), Barry Fitzgerald (Mr. Gogarty), and May Robson (Aunt Elizabeth). So many memorable scenes. Somehow, Hawks and his cast establish and then sustain zaniness at a high level of sophistication. Can it really be 65 years since this film first appeared? How remarkable that it has lost none of its entertainment value since then. None. Today, how much I wish I could see it again with Uncle Harry. He died years ago but I still have all those fond memories. He and they live on in films such as this. While seeing it again recently, I returned in time to Oak Park, to Otto's, and then to sharing it in a small apartment with Uncle Harry.

One of the First and Best Screwball Comedies!
This is one of the fastest, funniest and zanniest comedies ever made. Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant are in great shape. A funny script, 2 of the 30's greatest actors, Howard Hawks, and a great supporting cast combine to make this one of the most funniest films ever made. Rapid-fire dialogue and hilarious situations make this film entertaining all the way through. I can't see how this film could of been a flop when first released, it has stood the test of time better than most films from that era. This is the definitive screwball comedy, hilarious, see this movie. One of the greats. From a scale of 1-10 I give this film a 10!