my library of sorts

alancummingreally I wore this suit to the Met gala centuries ago in protest at being told to shut up and keep out of politics during the Iraq war, but I think today its message is even more prescient and vital.

I can’t give you anything but love, baby

  First of all, I’d like to thank Crystal for organizing the Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy blogathon and for letting me write about one of my favorite Katharine Hepburn pictures. ‘Bringing Up Baby’ was actually the first Hepburn picture I ever saw so it will always be special to me.

On May 3, 1938 the Independent Film Journal printed an article by Harry Brandt titled ‘Box Office Poison’. The piece was written on behalf of the Independent Theatre Owners of American and labeled many well-known movie stars of the time as ‘box office poison’, including Katharine Hepburn. A few months earlier, ‘Bringing Up Baby’ had been released and Katharine Hepburn’s fourteenth picture was another failure in a string of flops that had characterized her career over the previous years. Her last big hit had been ‘Alice Adams’, but that had been almost three years ago. When RKO, her film studio at the time, offered her a movie called ‘Mother Carey’s chickens’, she knew that it was time to buy out her contract and move on to greater things. The movie that had been her last one at RKO and that the New York Times had called ‘a farce which you can barely hear above the precisely enunciated patter of Miss Katharine Hepburn and the ominous thread of deliberative gags’ would also move on to greater things.

In 2000, the American Film Institute ranked ‘Bringing Up Baby’ at number 14 in their list of the 100 funniest movies in American cinema. ‘Bringing Up Baby’ is one of the great screwball comedies which feels timeless and is just as funny when you watch it for the 100th time as it was when you first watched it. The magical chemistry between Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, the absurd situations in which they find themselves, the song-loving leopard and bone-loving dog, and the great supporting cast  - from Miss Swallow to Major Applegate - all helped make this movie the classic that it has become. This is not so much a review – as I can’t really find anything bad to say about it – as an appreciation, a behind-the-scenes look and an incentive to give this movie a chance (if you haven’t already).

Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and director Howard Hawks on the set

‘Bringing Up Baby’ is the story of madcap heiress Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) and paleontologist David Huxley (Cary Grant) who find themselves drawn to each other, though not in the way you would expect. David only wants two things: to complete his brontosaurus – the last bone he needs is on its way – and to marry his assistant Miss Swallow. That is, until Susan Vance makes a mess of everything. The day before he is supposed to get married, they meet on the golf course. David has an appointment with Mr. Peabody whom he hopes will give one million dollars to the museum where he works. Susan manages to steal his golf ball, his car and his dignity. They keep running into each other, much to David’s dismay. When David finds outs that Mr. Peabody – aka ‘Boopy’ – is a close friend of Susan’s, he asks for her help – that is until he finds himself throwing pebbles at Mr. Peabody’s window in the middle of the night. The next day, Susan calls David because she needs his help. Since he is the only paleontologist she knows, he has to help her bring a leopard (Baby) – which her brother sent her from Brazil – to her country home in Connecticut. David is forced to agree and what follows is a series of absurd events, including leopard hunting in the Connecticut countryside, chasing George (the terrier of Susan’s aunt) who has stolen David’s brontosaurus bone, eventually ending up in prison where everyone involved is suspected of being a member of the ‘Leopard Gang’. The next day, when Susan comes to apologize for everything that happened – she only wanted to keep him near her – she manages to destroy David’s brontosaurus. Even then, David insists that the day he spent with her was the best day of his life.

Shooting on ‘Bringing Up Baby’ began on the 23th of September 1937. It was the second collaboration between Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn after they had starred together in ‘Sylvia Scarlett’ a few years earlier. Howard Hawks – perhaps now best known for directing two of the Bogart-Bacall pictures - directed the picture. Katharine Hepburn had a hard time at first with the character she was playing – often trying to be ‘too funny’. Howard Hawks asked vaudeville veteran Walter Catlett to coach her and Kate was so impressed with him that she insisted he play Constable Slocum in the picture.  

Apparently, the search to find ‘Baby’ the leopard wasn’t easy. One leopard – which was supposed to be tame – attacked a woman who was playing with him and another one was useless after someone thought it would be a good idea to have a puma instead and decided to paint spots on the leopard – which didn’t want to come off after they had changed their minds. Eventually, eight-year-old Nissa was assigned to play Baby. Olga Celeste, the animal’s trainer, was always around with a whip in case of problems. Everyone was afraid of Nissa apart from – you guessed it – Katharine Hepburn. She would put on perfume – Nissa was a pushover for French perfume - to make the animal playful. Everything went fine until Kate put on a skirt lined with little metal pieces and the leopard made a lunge for her back. Luckily, Olga Celeste was around to save the day. Cary Grant never did hit it off with the leopard and a double was used in the scenes where he and Baby were supposed to be together. Once, Katharine Hepburn put a stuffed leopard through a vent in the top of his dressing room. ‘He was out of there like lightning’, she wrote in her autobiography ‘Me’. Of course, the movie stars another animal: George, aunt Elizabeth’s terrier. Skippy, George’s real name, was a big star as far as dogs go. He became famous by playing ‘Asta’ in the ‘Thin Man’ movies and was given the real star treatment (separate dressing rooms, vegetarian diet…). He went on the star in the ‘Awful Truth’ and of course ‘Bringing Up Baby’. At the time, training animals was very important because special effects weren’t yet what they are nowadays.

‘I went gay all of a sudden’ is probably one of the most-quoted lines from this movie. It is uttered by Cary Grant when Susan’s aunt asks him why he is wearing a negligee. Whether or not this use of the word ‘gay’ is the first time in movies that it refers to ‘homosexual’ remains a topic of debate. However, one of the subsequent lines ‘I’m sitting in the middle of 42nd street, waiting for a bus’ might very well indicate it was. At the time, 42nd street was the primary cruising strip for the city’s male prostitutes. Other instances of sexual innuendo are also quite obvious. After all, this is a movie about a man looking for his bone (‘it’s rare, it’s precious’) and a woman looking for her… well, leopard. Luckily for us, the people working at the Hays office didn’t see any problem. The only thing they objected to was showing Susan’s panties when David ripped off the back of her skirt.

For me, ‘Bringing Up Baby’ is the definitive screwball comedy. This genre was popular during the Great Depression until the early 1940s. ‘It Happened One Night’ starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert is often cited as the first true screwball comedy. The main elements are: a female lead who challenges or dominates the male lead, fast-paced talking, absurd situations and conflict in social classes. Ironically, these were the elements of the film that were often criticized at the time. I guess it’s safe to say that ‘Bringing Up Baby’ was ahead of its time and fortunately has now been given the praise it so rightly deserves. Over the years, filmmakers have been inspired by the movie and the 1972 film ‘What’s Up, Doc?’ starring Barbra Streisand was even a homage to ‘Bringing Up Baby’.

‘Bringing Up Baby’ will always by one of my favorite Katharine Hepburn pictures. It’s still as fresh and witty 80 years later. I know all the lines by heart and never get tired of watching it. If you haven’t seen it already, give it a chance, you definitely will not regret it. And my, what would I give to be a member of the Leopard gang!

This piece is part of the Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn blogathon hosted by ‘In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood’. Be sure to check out all of the amazing contributions here: https://crystalkalyana.wordpress.com/2017/07/20/announcing-the-spencer-tracy-katharine-hepburn-blogathon/

edit THANKS @smellslikebot