This Month on TCM: "Bringing Up Baby" (1938)

On Tuesday, January 20th, TCM is showing one of the definitive examples of Hollywood's screwball comedy genre: Bringing Up Baby. A flop in its day, it's gone on to make best-of lists and certainly favorite-of lists of many a film lover.

If It Happened One Night is the prototype of the screwball comedy then Bringing Up Baby is the working definition. It Happened One Night had one foot in '30s realism; it knew it was escapism for the masses. Bread lines loom in the background of Capra's film but Baby is all escapism, with no pretense of seriousness. This makes It Happened One Night the better film perhaps, but gives Baby the comedy edge. Bringing Up Baby is 102 minutes of the purest comedy.

The thing about Bringing Up Baby is, well, despite starring Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, you have to be in the mood for it. This has a lot to do with the characterization of Susan Vance, Katharine Hepburn's character. She's a childish, selfish, spoiled idler. You have to get caught just right to let Susan slide by you. And it helps that Hepburn, who we're familiar with as anyone but an idler, embodies her. As Grant's David tells Susan, "... In moments of quiet I'm strangely drawn toward you, but well there haven't been any quiet moments." It's that kind of dicotomy that will draw you to actually liking Susan, and enjoying watching her.

Once in the mood, the film zips by, particularly the early scenes, and only gets a bit bogged down when a parade of character actor parts get introduced toward the finale. However, each of those character actors gets their laughs in as well, particularly May Robson as Susan's no nonsense aunt.

The movie is about a paleontologist (despite Susan's frequent references to him as a zoologist) trying to land his museum a $1 million gift, only a strange girl appears out of nowhere sidetracking him from meeting his contact and, worse yet, distracting him from his fiancee. Cary Grant as David Huxley, delivers as fine a comic performance as has ever been given. His mastery of exasperation, through facial expression and line delivery is the source of much of the film's comedy. Hepburn works well with Grant's fumblings— as in the classic scene when he must hold his hat against her behind after a "wardrobe malfunction" occurs. And just as Susan brings David out of his shell, Hepburn allows Grant the full expression of his talent-- never upstaging him and complementing his style with a relaxed performance.

The production and direction are markedly the voice of auteur Howard Hawks. Although Hawks notoriously excelled in all genres, his comedies— which also include Twentieth Century (1934), His Girl Friday (1940), Ball of Fire (1942), Monkey Business (1952), others— all have a particularly silly sophistication. They're set in perfectly normal places— a Connecticut country home, a newspaper office, a train— but wherein only-in-the-movies occurances arise. Monkey Business pushed this to the limit in its opening moments when Hawks is heard offscreen directing Cary Grant not to start the scene yet! In Bringing Up Baby, not one but two real-life leopards are introduced, and in fact, drive the plot. "Baby," yes, is a leopard that Susan is watching— sent from her brother, as a gift to her aunt, naturally. And just when Baby gets away from her, a leopard from a nearby circus gets loose. And did I mention there's a missing intercostal clavicle?

This all ends up with an extended finale where mix-up after mix-up occurs and soon every character is in the same room— including the leopards. There is even a chance for Hepburn's Susan to impersonate a gangster's moll, when she puts on the town sheriff. Third-billed Charlie Ruggles, who's character spends his time, mainly it seems, performing a dubbed in "leopard's call" is, with May Robson's Aunt Elizabeth, the voice of reason. These two, however, fall into the general spirit of things when, they too, become prey to the will of Baby.

Again, Bringing Up Baby is best consumed when your in a good mood and want to be in a better mood. If you're miserable, you'll reject it outright. But if life is good, Bringing Up Baby is great.

Bringing Up Baby (1938): If you're game, funny escape with the trademark silly sophistication of Howard Hawks and a particularly brilliant comic performance by Cary Grant.

This Month on TCM: "Adam's Rib" (1949)

Tomorrow, as part of their annual "Summer Under the Stars" month, TCM is showing a whole day's worth of Spencer Tracy movies (following today's tribute to Katharine Hepburn). Among them is the classic Tracy-Hepburn vehicle Adam's Rib.

Adam's Rib has the perfect Tracy-Hepburn set-up: they’re married lawyers on opposing sides of a case involving a woman who confronted her husband and his mistress, shooting him in the process. Adam’s Rib is generally considered the best of the Tracy-Hepburn comedy teamings, yet somehow I prefer the funnier films of the ‘50s— Pat and Mike (1952) and Desk Set (1957).





The structure of the screenplay (by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin) is at once clever and overly repetitive. We see the fireworks in the courtroom and “later that night” we follow Tracy’s "Adam" and Hepburn’s “Amanda” attempting to be civil to each other at home as if nothing had transpired during the day. In an oft-clipped scene, the two give each other a back rub both times leading to a “playful” slap on the backside— only Adam’s slap to Amanda is quite a wallop. The battle-of-the-sexes aspect is inevitably dated, but at least nothing truly offensive remains.

The whole of Adam and Amanda’s lifestyle is the epitome of sophistication, particularly in comparison to the lives of the accused wife (played by Judy Holliday) and the two-timing husband (played by Tom Ewell). David Wayne, playing a rival for Amanda’s affections, spoils the home scenes— he comes off downright annoying. Although that’s the point of his character, you wonder why Amanda puts up with him and why we— the audience— must endure him as well. One delightful home sequence (despite David Wayne’s interruptions) involves a “home movie” of Amanda and Adam as they celebrate the ownership of their country house.

The courtroom scenes are the highlight of the film (enough to recommended the entire movie) and supporting players Holliday and Ewell are a significant contribution to their coming off so well. One of the funniest bits, a running joke that’s carried into the courtroom, involves a hat that Adam has bought for Amanda as a peace offering.




Adam’s Rib (1949): Perfect Tracy-Hepburn premise has spark and sophistication, but also a repetitive structure and an intrusive performance by supporting player David Wayne.

This Month on TCM: A Bill of Divorcement (1932)

On Tuesday January 29th, TCM is showing several films starring John Barrymore, including A BILL OF DIVORCEMENT, which is mostly notable as Katharine Hepburn’s very first film.


According to the biography GEORGE CUKOR: A DOUBLE LIFE, the casting of the daughter role was initially a choice between Jill Esmond (then married to Laurence Olivier) and Anita Louise; however Cukor wanted a fresh face. Although no one was really all that impressed with Hepburn’s screen test, Cukor saw something in it—particularly in a moment when she picked up a highball glass with her back to the camera—that suggested something to him—“a sad lyric moment” and he convinced David O. Selznick to cast her. This was a plum part as it was opposite then-legendary John Barrymore (the same year he appeared in GRAND HOTEL).

A BILL OF DIVORCEMENT is about an institutionalized man (Barrymore) who returns to his family after fifteen years, having escaped from the asylum, who faces the harsh reality that time has past him by. Daughter Hepburn discovers that it wasn’t just shellshock that sent him there in the first place. The film is broadly dramatic, but has enough style and momentum to be reasonably entertaining— and worthwhile enough for one to devote the 70 minute running time.

The dated film is mainly marred by stage-bound-stiff dialogue in which each character TELLS us how he or she feels every moment. One scene follows another in a linear fashion but there’s enough suspense— about why Hilary (Barrymore) went to the asylum, his escape, how and when he’ll find out about his wife’s divorcing him, if he’ll let her and her new fiancé go, etc.— and tragedy, to keep things moving.

Katharine Hepburn plays her no-nonsense, headstrong, free-spirited role well, setting herself up for a career of the type. She holds her own completely opposite veteran Barrymore. Barrymore IS convincing in the film— quiet and sad one moment, angry at the world the next— as her not-so-cured father returning from his mentally ill haze but falling back with every other moment. Nice scene where Hilary says that he realizes that his wife Meg (Billie Burke) has changed, gotten harder, and how Sydney (Hepburn) is like Meg used to be (“she’s more you than you are”) and how Meg’s “grown right up, away, beyond me, haven’t you?” He then optimistically says that Meg will help him “catch up” but the audience knows that the world’s past him by.

In later scenes, admittedly, Barrymore does get a bit over-the-top. This was surely one of the starring parts that Barrymore felt should have won him the Oscar— but as he had been quoted to say, they would never give him one for fear that he’d show up drunk to the ceremony! Billie Burke’s technique is quite old-fashioned, but works for her part as the guilt-ridden Meg.

Again, a worthwhile movie in order to see Hepburn’s screen debut [the credits misspell her first name!] and as (another) showcase for Barrymore. Hepburn wrote in her autobiography ME: STORIES OF MY LIFE: “[Barrymore] was sweet— he was funny— and he could certainly act…. I was indeed lucky to be in the film. It was a showy part.”

A Bill of Divorcement (1932): Dated film with stage-bound-stiff dialogue has enough style and momentum to be reasonably entertaining at its modest length— plus a great showy performance by John Barrymore and Katharine Hepburn (in her screen debut) setting up a career of headstrong female parts.