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| Bringing Up Baby (Two-Disc Special Edition) | 
 enlarge | Director: Howard Hawks
Actors: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Charles Ruggles, Walter Catlett, Barry Fitzgerald
Studio: Turner Home Ent
Category: DVD
List Price: $26.98
Buy New: $17.92
You Save: $9.06 (34%)
New (25) Used (9) from $17.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  136 reviews
Sales Rank: 10134
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dvd-video, Original Recording Remastered, Special Edition, Subtitled, Ntsc
Languages: English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Number Of Items: 2
Running Time: 102
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 7321
ISBN: 0780651308
UPC: 053939732122
EAN: 9780780651302
ASIN: B0007TKNCY
Theatrical Release Date: February 18, 1938
Release Date: March 1, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com essential video
"The love impulse in man," says a psychiatrist in Bringing Up Baby, "frequently reveals itself in terms of conflict." That's for sure. For a primer on the rules and regulations of the classic screwball comedy, which throws love and conflict into close proximity, look no further. A straight-laced paleontologist (Cary Grant) loses a dinosaur bone to a dog belonging to free-spirited heiress Katharine Hepburn. In trying to retrieve said bone, Grant is drawn into the vortex surrounding the delicious Hepburn, which becomes a flirtatious pas de deux that will transform both of them. Director Howard Hawks plays the complications as a breathless escalation of their "love impulse," yet the movie is nonetheless romantic for all its speed. (Hawks's His Girl Friday, also with Grant, goes even faster.) Grant and Hepburn are a match made in movie heaven, in sync with each other throughout. Not a great box-office success when first released, Bringing Up Baby has since taken its place as a high-water mark of the screwball form, and it was used as a model for Peter Bogdanovich's What's Up, Doc? --Robert Horton
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| Customer Reviews: Read 131 more reviews...
 WHY don't they make movies like this anymore?? June 7, 2008
I've seen this movie about 50 times and it NEVER stops being funny! It's clean, it's silly, it's just a GREAT laugh without any ugliness or violence like everything THINKS it has to have today to be good. Cary Grant is totally out of his "leading man" character in this movie and he's fantastic! This shows no matter what he's asked to play, he's up for the challenge. Katherine Hepburn is one of my all time favorites and as always, she's at the top of her game as a fast talking, often confusing (to poor Cary's character), EVER hysterical, rich girl who seems to have lost her tiger. One of my favorite movie scenes is when she loses the back of her dress and he has to walk her through a restaurant close to her back so no one can see her " accident!" This movie is defintely worth watching over and over especially if you've had a bad day in the "real world" and want to escape to a rip roaring good time that's BOUND to make you giggle and make that bad day melt away!
Adorable & Quick Witted June 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is one of those movies I can watch over and over again. The chemistry between Grant and Hepburn creates a perfect foil for the snappy dialogue interspersed amongst somewhat silly but completely engaging situations.
Movies from this era understand that every character matters, that they add the spice to the movie. Hence, the constable, the gardener and even the dog add to the overall screwball energy. Movies today don't seem to pay that much attention to such small details.
Hepburn is delightful. In fact, the first time I gave it to my younger brother to watch he absolutely fell in love with her. Her distinctive voice works to her advantage here as the flighty but well meaning Susan Vance. Her incredible energy and innocent machinations add depth to a character which could've descended into stereotype and annoyance if not infused with Hepburn's considerable charm.
Grant is, of course, letter perfect in a role that turns his leading man suave reputation on its head. Instead of the smooth Cary Grant, we are pleasantly surprised by his David, a nerd and rather bumbling, which offers great opportunity to bump up against the insanity of Susan, though by the end of the movie one realizes that she's not only drawn him from his shell, but allowed him to recognize that the very ordered existance he had set up with the very controlled Miss Swallow was not the answer to his dreams as he once thought.
If you wish to watch a textbook, delightful, adorable and engaging screwball comedy, I highly recommend this one as the epitome of the genre. Not to be missed.
Classic Grant/Hepburn humor at it's best! April 6, 2008
The hilarity and hijinx are non-stop! Just when you think it can't get any funnier - it does! This has been a favorite of mine since I first saw it in the seventies! My sister and I were home from school with a bad case of the flu when this movie came on and we couldn't stop laughing all the way through! It was every bit as good as I remembered and the group of teens watching with me who swore they would hate it for sure since it was so "old" couldn't stop laughing either and had to cofess that it was a great movie !
5 star package of overrated comedy March 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Bringing up Baby" is a very famous screwball comedy which was a box office failure on its release but has become a cult classic. Starring Katharine Hepburn in her first outright comedy, she is at the heart of why the film failed in 1938. In simple terms, there was just too much of her. Whilst spirited and entertaining, she is also irritating and ruthless and it is these qualities which detract from the film. Cary Grant is not simply pursued by this wilful heroine but positively harassed. Many audiences of the time did not take to Hepburn. The film is typical fast moving, fast talking Howard Hawks (the director) and the supporting cast are excellent but there is no sane character to ground the film and Hawks himself felt this was why it failed.
This 2 disk package contains some great extras. The print is excellent and Peter Bogdanovich provides an unusual commentary, quoting from Hawks himself and observing how the filming occurred, very much from a director's viewpoint. Bogdanovich remade the film of sorts as "What's up Doc" with Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neill in the 70s and that suffered from the same relentless heroine as this film does.
There are 2 really good documentaries included. The first is a TCM film on the life of Cary Grant. It would have to be the definitive work on the star with appearances by 3 of his wives providing great insight into his personality. The other documentary is one of a series about filmmakers, "The Men who Made Movies", cutting together a couple of interviews with Howard Hawks. It is particularly amusing to hear him comment on the French critics who have overanalysed his legacy when all he says is 'I did it because I liked it and if I did not like it, I did it until I did." It is great to hear the director skewer their pretentions.
Lastly, there is a technicolour short film from the Warner's vault and a very young Susan Hayward can be glimpsed poolside. The cartoon is a takeoff of Hollywood stardom with the heroine goose imitating Katharine Hepburn. The Howard Hawks trailer gallery is really a marketing exercise.
The DVD is excellent value but even better if purchased as part of the Classic Comedy set from MGM/Warners.
 Regardless Of What Others May Say...... February 17, 2008
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
My daughter and I are great fans of Cary Grant movies. She is only 18 and thankfully has great taste in regards to the golden age of Hollywood movie making and the actors from that time. Cary Grant is one of our favorite actors and we own, Arsenic and Old Lace, Charade, An Affair To Remember and The Bishop's Wife. We recently watched and enjoyed Holiday with Grant and Hepburn, I thought Grant was hilarious when he did his acrobatics. Also we have enjoyed watching in the last month Houseboat, the Philadelphia Story, and My Favorite Wife. So it is not said lightly when we say this movie was irritating. My daughter was home sick one day from school recently and I put this movie in for her(and me). (By the way the only medicine she was on was ibuprofen for the cynically minded)
About thirty minutes into the movie we turned it off. The rate at which Hepburn talks is incredible and irritating; though this is a true screwball comedy, I found that the intelligence level of Hepburn's and Grant's characters belittling of their caliper of an actor. Though Grant plays a scientist that is so engrossed in his work that he is innocent in his social graces, I thought he could have done more with his implied intelligence to stand up to Hepburn's character.
By writing this I realize I am the minority of opinion, but I will not let my high regard for Grant and Hepburn as actors be my only reason I like this movie. It is possible we will watch this again in the future, if so I may update our opinion of the movie.
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