#1085: HAWKS, Howard: Bringing Up Baby (1938)

HAWKS, Howard (United States)
Bringing Up Baby [1938]
Spine #1085
Blu-ray


Screwball sparks fly when Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn let loose in one of the fastest and funniest films ever made -- a high-wire act of invention that took American screen comedy to new heights of absurdity. Hoping to procure a million-dollar endowment from a wealthy society matron for his museum, a hapless paleontologist (Grant) finds himself entangled with a dizzy heiress (Hepburn) as the manic misadventures pile up -- a missing dinosaur bone, a leopard on the loose, and plenty of gender-bending mayhem among them. Bringing Up Baby's sophisticated dialogue, spontaneous performances, and giddy innuendo come together in a whirwind of comic chaos captured with lightning-in-a-bottle brio by director Howard Hawks.

102 minutes
Black & White
Monaural
1:37:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2021
Director/Writers


Based on the story by Hagar Wilde.
Screenplay by Dudley Nichols and Wilde.
Howard Hawks was 42 when he directed Bringing Up Baby.

Other Hawks films in the Collection:

#1239: Scarface (1932)
#806: Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
#849: His Girl Friday (1940)
#709: Red River (1948)

The Film

A

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

The Booklet

Forty-four page booklet featuring an essay by critic Sheila O’Malley and the 1937 short story by Wilde on which the film is based.

Commentary

From 2005 featuring filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich.

Video essay

On actor Grant by author Scott Eyman.

Interview 1

About DP Russell Metty with DP John Bailey.

Interview 2

With film scholar Craig Barron on special-effects pioneer Linwood Dunn.

Selected-scene-commentary

About costume designer Howard Greer featuring costume historian Shelly Foote.

Howard Hawks: A Hell of a Good Life

A 1977 documentary by Hans-Christoph Blumenberg featuring the director’s last filmed interview.

Audio interview

From 1969 with Grant.

Audio excerpts

From a 1972 conversation between Hawks and Bogdanovich.

Trailer

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

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