Designing the Movies: Bringing Up Baby
On American Thanksgiving, we give thanks for this Howard Hawks screwball! 85th Anniversary Screening
An absent-minded palaeontologist meets a flighty eccentric. What could possibly go wrong? Everything, as it turns out, because in spite of best efforts by pragmatic David Huxley (Cary Grant), chaos follows socialite Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) wherever she goes. Bringing up Baby is the second of Grant and Hepburn’s four outings together and it’s as bizarre as it is beloved—for what is basically a series of madcap misunderstandings, pratfalls, fast-talking banter, and slapstick. Even without the tame leopard, it’s almost certainly the screwiest screwball comedy of them all.