Levada da Breca

Those people who don't like this movie seem to miss the point; IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE RIDICULOUS AND MAKE NO SENSE AT ALL! THAT'S WHAT MAKES IT FUNNY! Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I want to say that I really did have a laugh a minute. Both Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn are very adapt at this kind of comedy, in top form here, and work very well together. They have a great, very funny supporting cast, as well; though most are long dead and forgotten, many were well-known character actors in the 30's. They knew their craft, and are great at it here. Howard Hawks must have been some director to be able to fashion such a great movie out of a madcap pace and a script in which everyone talks at the same time and is always ad-libbing. (I've heard those were his trademarks, though.) One scene after another at breakneck pace, but never a dull moment. As soon as one laugh stops, another one begins. In case you haven't gotten the point, I highly suggest you see this movie. It may be 60 years old, but it's still hilarious.

Those without a sense of humor in 1938, must have been insane, panning this film.

Since I was a little kid this was my favorite movie, seeing it when it first came on TV. I loved other Cary Grant screwball comedies, like "Monkey Business" but this this one tops my list, not only a list of comedies, but of all motion pictures entirely.

Move over Stanley Kubrick, David Lean or William Wyler. This film is at the top of cultural significance and hilarity. This makes me wonder about those in 1938 who hated this film. Why? How? It has to be broken, defective humans that would pan this film. What a shame that some have no concept of funny,

Despite the film being predictable, it was actually quite well done for its time. There were instances where you "saw that coming" but others that threw you for a loop. For example, I didn't know what to expect when i started the movie, i did not know Baby was a tiger. Not deserving of the bad rep, i recommend this film.

Brilliant comedic timing, timeless jokes, a perfect Hollywood pairing, farfetched situations, oh, and a pet leopard... what more could you ask for in a comedy?

Usually, most reviews begin with a brief summary of the movie's plot, but with this, I won't bother. Just watch it! The movie's nonsensical narrative and random happenings are enough to keep you laughing and begging for more. It doesn't matter that the plot's a bit mad; if you're after a laugh - and with everything going on, who isn't? - this is the one for you!

Stand out moments for me are when Susan (Hepburn) annoyingly repeats (and echoes) David's (Grant) cries for pet pooch George who's got a very important bone before the pair follow George aimlessly around the garden as he takes the pair on a wild goose chase digging up things he's buried. The scenes where the couple are in a restaurant and get into a few wardrobe mishaps and misunderstandings with fellow diners are really funny too.

Grant, as usual, is the quintessential leading man for a '30s screwball comedy - easily flipping between being confused, flustered, cynical and at his wits' end in the hair-brained schemes his character (willingly) gets himself into.

Hepburn is superb. It's amazing how she was able to, in her early career, portray wealthy and spoiled New England girls brought down to earth following a chance meeting with a charming guy - usually played by Hollywood's cream of the crop (Grant, Tracy, Stewart, etc.). On the surface, these characters aren't the ones you typically root for, yet she makes them likable and entertaining. A class act!

"Bringing Up Baby" is a film I unconditionally love; it is so utterly sublime a comedy that I was truly sighing, awed, 'it can't get better than this...' at many points. Yet it regularly does; Hawks keeps the momentum going majestically; it is one incredibly surreal, bizarre tangent going off unexpectedly into another, at every juncture. He photographs and presents his actors in the most charming and amusing possible ways, and the film is certainly a more leisurely, perfectly pitched film than "His Girl Friday", which I nonetheless admire. There is a beauty in the photography and simple choice of perspectives and angles that matches the

There is not one actress in the annals of film who I adore more than Katharine Hepburn; she is a compelling performer, of great charm, intelligence and wit; of very real, idiosyncratic looks that to this eye are beautiful, vivacious, impish. In "Bringing Up Baby" her Susan Vance is a very interesting diversion from her more usual type of character - the slightly superior, in-control ice maiden, as shown in say "The Philadelphia Story". She is phenomenal in that film, yet here beguiling in a completely different fashion, playing a slightly scatterbrained, sprightly, charmingly delinquent woman, who seems to have no control over anything; least of all her feelings for Grant. Her giddy, breathless exuberance and anarchic helplessness are really endearing; it's a wonderful film that stretches out the credulity of Grant's wonderfully straight-laced character's resistance to Miss Vance. The ending is a gorgeous, satisfying pay-off, as he finally gives way, as would we all! It's a charming, suitable ending that rectifies the slight fall-off of the preceding jail section of the film. That is very amusing, but in a more predictable, slightly laboured way. In stark contrast to the first 70-80 minutes of the film, which amounts to about the finest sustained American comedy I have seen of that length - "Way Out West" and "Duck Soup" being shorter in total.

Cary Grant, truly an institution of a comedic player, is very different to his more remembered persona of later years. It's remarkable to see this absurd little man, bespectacled, unworldly and cutting an orthodox figure played so perfectly by the suave Grant. This is gleefully played on with the sublime scene where Hepburn and Grant are trying to catch the leopard - Kate butterfly net in hand! She accidentally happens to break his glasses and is even more taken with him without them... The tension between how we usually remember Grant and the character he is playing here does add an extra layer of amusement to the film. Need I really add that the rest of the film's company are note perfect? Charles Ruggles, Barry Fitzgerald and many more really give the perfectly matched stars a fine backdrop.

I shan't spoil too much of this heady, sublimely silly film... just go and watch it and see Howard Hawks, a master craftsman, at his best - there are no pretensions but making a quite wonderful character comedy - and Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant on insurmountable form. With these delightful stars and anarchic, scintillating comic material, what we have on our hands is an unutterably fine film, one of my very favourites of all time. Where else are you going to get such plot threads running simultaneously as: a hunt for a rare archeological find buried by a dog, an absurd upper-middle-class family dinner and an escaped leopard?

Rating:- *****/*****