Bringing Up Baby

BFI Film Classics

by Peter Swaab

Directed by Howard Hawks in 1938, Bringing Up Baby is one of the great screwball comedies and a treasure from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Cary Grant plays a naive and repressed professor who becomes entangled with (and ensnared by) a willful heiress played by Katharine Hepburn. Chaos ensues as romance blossoms and not one but two leopards are set loose in verdant Connecticut. As well as being a thoroughly American fiction of the 1930s, Bringing Up Baby also has a classical comic narrative, exploring conflicts between civilization and nature, rationality and insanity or eccentricity, middle-class inhibitions and aristocratic blitheness. It is an anthology of comic types and devices, and one of the most seductively funny films ever made.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction

96 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2005

Reviews

[Andrew Bishop · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best introduction to one of the greatest of American film comedies! In addition to the good research on Howard Hawks - I was pleased that Swaab makes use of Gerald Mast's excellent book on the director - to offer evidence of the man's unique talent, the context provided for the film in relation to screwball comedy is valuable. Swaab takes time to argue the film's greatness and discuss other films of this era. His appraisal of the acting shows the film's true greatness and one more place where Hawks excelled as a filmmaker. His comments on Hepburn are also good and he even makes use of Andrew Britton's superb criticism of the legendary actress. Striking a balance between delight and appreciation, Swaab's book is a testament to the ability of critical analysis to bring out the joys of such a great movie.

[Dan Humphrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you love the film, this is certainly worth a read. The author makes many thought provoking points in a breezy writing style while correcting some annoying mistakes made by other writers over the years.

[Bill Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first saw the film way back, about 1980, in an inspired double-bill with WR: Mysteries of the Organism. What a brilliant night that was. Both extremely funny but Bringing up Baby was stunning and one of the funniest films ever. Cary Grant wonderful and Katharine Hepburn out of this world. So to revisit it recently and a Sunday night at home alone and yes, it still stands up, maybe even more enjoyable with the passage of time and certainly very funny. Curiosity piqued and I bought this to read more. A good read and interesting to read an interpretation well presented from a different perspective. What was missing, for me, was more on the development of the film and a little more background, although some is there. It is more an analysis of the plot and the signifiers embedded there, particularly around the sexuality, but tilted towards the homosexual undertones - and no problem with that. Maybe the heterosexual overtones are too obvious to discuss. However, it is too easy to over-analyse and arguably Swaab hits the point towards the end, it’s fun. Yet, my curiosity is still piqued and I’m tempted to read more.

[William Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Breezy but thoughtful analysis of the film, production, gender, sexuality, and other issues, along with a useful framing of the film against the screwball comedy genre.