Bringing Up Baby

Two people stand close together outdoors; one wears a ruffled dress and holds a coiled rope, the other wears a suit and tie

Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby (1938) is one of the fastest and funniest films of all time. The charismatic Cary Grant stars as David Huxley, a bumbling paleontologist working to complete the reconstruction of a massive dinosaur skeleton and eager to secure a substantial endowment for his museum from a wealthy benefactor. A unexpected encounter with the dizzying heiress Susan Vance — played with pizzazz by the great Katharine Hepburn — sets off a series of misadventures that include a leopard named "Baby," a missing dinosaur bone, a yapping dog who likes burying things, and a laughable case of mistaken identity that lands everyone in jail.

This unlikely, whirlwind romance between straight-laced David and ebullient Susan set a new bar for the screwball comedy with its sophisticated dialogue, charismatic performances, and increasingly absurd escapades, all masterfully directed by Howard Hawks, who graduated from Cornell in 1918 and studied mechanical engineering.

The film screens in a 35mm print courtesy of 20th Century Fox.

Part of our "Screwball Comedies" and "Willard Straight at 100" series. Courtesy of 20th Century Fox and Criterion Pictures.

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