Pro Membership
Bringing Up Baby (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
Inhouse product
Reviews & Ratings
-
Dr. Robert F. Knoll
09-08-2025"Bringing up Baby", the brilliant 1938 screwball comedy, is the work of many gifted hands, from the stars in perfect alignment, Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, to the carefully chosen and skillfully acting human supporting cast, Charles Ruggles, May Robson and Barry Fitzgerald. Then there is the work of Asta, the dog from "The Thin Man", transmogrified into George, loving to bury bones and described by his owner as a "perfect little fiend", Nissa, the leopard, which makes a perfect sparring partner for Hepburn's character, and the skeleton of the brontosaurus lacking only its "intercostal clavicle" for its completion at the end of the film.Screwball comedy, a genre which flourished from the mid 1930's into the 1940's, elevating the spirits of audiences suffering through the Great Depression and World War II, drew the finest stars from Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert to William Powell and Carol Lombard to Barbara Stanwyck and first Henry Fonda and then Gary Cooper. Fast paced dialogue too quick to think about until it landed (to wit, Hepburn's character, having broken off a shoe heel, chirping "I was born on the side of a hill") was rendered by mistresses and masters of their craft under the guidance of Hollywood's finest ringmasters; in "Baby's" case, Howard Hawks. Hawks had given us the best of the gangster genre, the original "Scarface"(1932) and would give us one of the best Westerns, "Red River" (1948"). Here he conducts a literal and hilarious long day's journey into night. The film begins in a light drenched museum and reaches its high point in a jail at nighttime with lots of characters introduced to each other and lots of plot lines resolved. This portion of the film invokes the ring master analogy.Hepburn and Grant starred together in one of Hollywood's most bizarre comedies of sexual identity in 1936's "Sylvia Scarlett" and then moved on to the upper reaches of American society with their three comedies of marriage and money: "Holiday" and "Baby", both 1938, and "The Philadelphia Story" (1940". "Baby", on one level, is about which of 2 contestants will receive a million dollar bequest: Hepburn's heiress or Grant's museum.Susan Vance is one of those roles that came naturally to Katharine Hepburn, a native of Connecticut, a Bryn Mawr graduate, a fine golfer and tennis player (both skills are in evidence in her later Spencer Tracy costarrer "Pat and Mike" (1952). Grant's visual appeal coupled with his superbly delivered befuddlement and growing ensorcellment (courtesy of Hepburn and her character) make Heiress Vance and Paleontologist David Huxley (perfectly chosen name) a comic pairing for the ages.Full disclosure: "Bringing Up Baby" has been a family favorite since my Irish grandmother saw it in its original 1938 run. According to my mother, my Irish grandmother reacted so strongly to the film that she kept the surrounding viewers entertained by her responses as well as did the actors. Since my grandmother was the one who introduced me to, and raised me in the movies, it is no wonder that "Baby", along with "Some Like It Hot", is my favorite film comedy of all time.I treasure this Criterion masterwork, fitted out with all manner of supplementary material, as is their custom. Although some portions of the film are a bit "soft", this is the best possible rendition of "Baby" since the original material was destroyed in an RKO studio fire.
-
kauaiguy
09-08-2025if you are looking for classic early days movies, this is a good pick - and a Criterion pick as well, so the quality is superb! We had a previous version and this one shines better in every way - though you have to take into consideration that you'll see film grain! This high resolution version is higher resolution than the original film stock, so you really see everything. PS watch for the scenes when the leopard is really a different cat, a jaguar! And of course, when it is a puppet.
-
Culper, Jr.
09-08-2025This is my wife's favorite movie, so it gets a viewing every year for her birthday. It is one of the greatest screwball comedies ever made, with a fantastic cast. My father, not a sentimental type, saw the film when it first came out and was able to recite some of the dialogue verbatim more than 60 years later. Great fun.
Technical Specifications
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 whirlwind of comic chaos captured with lightning-in-a-bottle brio by director Howard Hawks.BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURESNew, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrackAudio commentary from 2005 featuring filmmaker Peter BogdanovichNew video essay on actor Cary Grant by author Scott EymanNew interview about cinematographer Russell Metty with cinematographer John BaileyNew interview with film scholar Craig Barron on special-effects pioneer Linwood DunnNew selected-scene commentary about costume designer Howard Greer with costume historian Shelly FooteHoward Hawks: A Hell of a Good Life, a 1977 documentary by Hans-Christoph Blumenberg featuring the director’s last filmed interviewAudio interview from 1969 with GrantAudio excerpts from a 1972 conversation between Hawks and BogdanovichTrailerEnglish subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearingPLUS: An essay by critic Sheila O’Malley
