Bringing Up Baby

Name: Bringing Up Baby
Genre: Comedy, Romance, Family
Released: February 18, 1938
Duration: 102 min
Rating: 91
Cast: Barry Fitzgerald, Cary Grant, Charles Ruggles, Fritz Feld, George Irving

1938

METASCORE

Universal acclaim based on 17 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 26 Ratings

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7.6

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7.6	Your Score
7.6	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 26 Ratings

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Bringing Up Baby

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Movie Details & Credits

RKO Radio Pictures | Release Date: February 18, 1938 | TV-G

Starring: Barry Fitzgerald, Cary Grant, Charles Ruggles, Fritz Feld, George Irving, Katharine Hepburn, Leona Roberts, May Robson, Tala Birell, Walter Catlett

Summary: While trying to secure a $1 million donation for his museum, a befuddled paleontologist is pursued by a flighty and often irritating heiress and her pet leopard, Baby.

Director: Howard Hawks

Genre(s): Comedy, Romance, Family

Rating: TV-G

Runtime: 102 min

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Critic Reviews

100

Empire Angie Errigo

Damn, damn funny. Read full review

100

Dave Kehr

Time has revealed its brilliance, as well as the apparent impossibility of its like ever being seen again. Read full review

100

Hal Linden

Basically, Katharine Hepburn could do no wrong, and with Cary Grant, the ultimate screen actor, you've got an instant classic. Screwball comedy is one of the hardest to bring off, and director Howard Hawks realized that you have to play real to make it succeed. [12 July 1998, p.30]

100

The Guardian David Thomson

Bringing Up Baby is very funny. It leaves one in awe at the speed and timing of Grant and Hepburn, as well as their goofy, lopsided humanity...Don't trust the public to recognise a masterpiece. Read full review

Caroline Siede

As Hawks admits, Bringing Up Baby isn’t a perfect film. But there’s an undeniable, ephemeral magic that comes from watching him, Hepburn, and Grant all work together on such a madcap story. Read full review

Pauline Kael

The director, Howard Hawks, keeps all this trifling nonsense in such artful balance that it never impinges on the real world; it may be the American movies' closest equivalent to Restoration comedy.

Frank S. Nugent

After the first five minutes of the Music Hall's new show - we needed those five to orient ourselves - we were content to play the game called "the cliche expert goes to the movies" and we are not at all proud to report that we scored 100 per cent against Dudley Nichols, Hagar Wilde and Howard Hawks, who wrote and produced the quiz. Of course, if you've never been to the movies, Bringing Up Baby will be all new to you - a zany-idden product of the goofy farce school. But who hasn't been to the movies? Read full review

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User Reviews

amheretojudge

Jun 19, 2019

All the bickering and small talks, led to this, one of the finest pair I encountered on screen.

Bringing Up Baby Hawks, maybe, has the ingredients that I don't prefer. For, as far as filmmaking is concerned, there are scenes projected in here, that might drop your jaw. The director HowardAll the bickering and small talks, led to this, one of the finest pair I encountered on screen.

Bringing Up Baby

Hawks, maybe, has the ingredients that I don't prefer. For, as far as filmmaking is concerned, there are scenes projected in here, that might drop your jaw. The director Howard Hawks must be a good comedian. Since what he finds funny might not marginally come under everyone's jurisdiction. Let us first give the respect to the visual department. How smartly have they pulled off some imageries. For instance, a dog fighting a leopard or in that case anything with leopard. Just like, George Lucas used efficiently productive methods on set to create a whole new world, Hawks is tricking you nicely.

Maybe these are the moments that led the industry to use more artificial things or sprinkle something post production, hence films like Wings makes you challenge yourself. In plot, I'll tell you one thing, the irritation does communicate with me. There are loads of verbal sparrings and loud noises, it's like if Martin Scorsese met Aaron Sorkin and together they were on steroids. It can be too much, easily. The screenplay is smartly and highly detailed and still the gags are kept prior to the narration.

No matter how well it is done, you can always tell apart after you are done with the film. The chemistry is another major note. It is off the hook and if you want to see a good example, watch them coordinate with each other in sync in the beginning of the party sequence. The issue that I had with was Cary Grant's character and not of Katherine Hepburn. He is the catalyst. She is one smart cookie in every situation. Just watch her get her way out of ticket, she knows what she is doing. Bringing Up Baby is actually a "how to not" novel, and unfortunately "how tos" are not my thing.… Expand

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