Bringing Up Baby (Two-Disc Special Edition)

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"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

Customer Reviews:

Shipping fiasco.......2007-09-14

Took over a month to straighten out delivery and Amazon changed original shipping destination without my approval.

Oh 'Baby,' this is a funny film!.......2007-08-23

Though, this film initially wasn't a blockbuster hit when it was first released, BRINGING UP BABY is now well-respected as one of the best films from Howard Hawks' directorial repertoire. Katharine Hepburn is wonderful as the irresistable heiress and Cary Grant charms us in his role as a paleontologist (scientist specializing in the study of dinosaurs) hot on the trail for a missing bone in a dinosaur he is reconstructing. Low and behold, the young heiress' dog has taken possession of the bone and promptly buried it. What's more, she has a baby leopard, Baby, who is anything but gentle.

This screwball comedy is a riot. It's great to see Cary Grant in an understated role, for a change! At the crux of it, his character is mild-mannered and unassuming, and also happens to have some very hard luck in his life. Will fate bring him closer to the woman he is supposed to be with? And no, it might not be who he even envisioned in a million years. But, there you have it. Fate often works out that way. And, more importantly, will he uncover the whereabouts of the bone? Be sure to see this. You won't be sorry.

Love in the Jungle.......2007-08-19

Classic screwball comedy about how opposites attract. Grant is a buttoned-down paleontologist trying to put together a brontosaurus skeleton and raise money for the museum; he's engaged to his museum assistant, who refuses a honeymoon because she believes work comes first. At the golf course with a prospective donor, he runs into the crazy Hepburn character who turns his life upside down and takes him on a variety of absurd adventures. The "baby" of the title is a tame leopard who contributes to the hi-jinks. Classic witty and fast-paced Hawks dialogue.

The "screw" in "screwball comedies".......2007-07-07

This is the definitive screwball comedy of all time. Cary Grant has more quirky looks at Kate Hepburn than any leading man with her. Cary Grant shows his usual charm and versatility at being a comic actor. Kate Hepburn plays a very scatterbrained heiress and is at her best. Oh, "baby" does not refer to Hepburn, but a leopard! So if you also like animals this is the comedy for you. This film (1938) is pure funniness and just plain entertaining. Another great addition to any collector of classic films or comedies...

Bringing Up Baby.......2007-06-20

While the movie was a flop with the audience when it came out in the 30's,
it is a hilarious comedy, lots of slapstick, with Hepburn and Grant at their best.

Classic Comedies Collection (Bringing Up Baby / The Philadelphia Story Two-Disc Special Edition / Dinner at Eight / Libeled Lady / Stage Door / To Be or Not to Be)

Average customer rating:

LAUGH OUT LOUD! FUNNY!!!!
SHAME ON WARNER BROTHERS!
A wonderful collection of classic comedies
Big Belly laughs in every single movie
This is nice to have on hand

Classic Comedies Collection (Bringing Up Baby / The Philadelphia Story Two-Disc Special Edition / Dinner at Eight / Libeled Lady / Stage Door / To Be or Not to Be)
Starring: Katharine Hepburn , Cary Grant , Charles Ruggles , Walter Catlett , and Barry Fitzgerald
Director: Howard Hawks , and George Cukor
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0006Z2KXY
Release Date: 2005-03-01

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Re-creating the role she originated in Philip Barry's wickedly witty Broadway play, Katharine Hepburn stars as the spoiled and snobby socialite Tracy Lord in The Philadelphia Story, one of the great romantic comedies from the golden age of MGM studios. Applying her impossibly high ideals to everyone but herself, Tracy is about to marry a stuffy executive when her congenial ex-husband (Cary Grant), arrives to protect his former father-in-law from a potentially scandalous tabloid exposé. In an Oscar-winning role, James Stewart is the scandal reporter who falls for Tracy as her wedding day arrives, throwing her into a dizzying state of premarital jitters. Who will join Tracy at the altar? Snappy dialogue flows like sparkling wine under the sophisticated direction of George Cukor in this film that turned the tide of Hepburn's career from "box-office poison" to glamorous Hollywood star.

MGM originally promoted Dinner at Eight by touting the "all-star cast," but this is no run-of-the-mill omnibus picture. On the contrary, rather than cramming as many big names as possible into a lumbering vehicle, the movie's impeccably crafted script (by Edna Ferber and Herman J. Mankiewicz) and direction (by George Cukor) gave some immortal screen luminaries a chance to shine. For sheer bravery, John Barrymore's achingly poignant performance as Larry Renault, a washed-up matinee idol who has "outlived everything but his vanity," is unmatched. Barrymore's brother, Lionel, is equally touching as shipping magnate Oliver Jordan. Oliver vainly tries to save his family's century-old firm, at the same time hiding his financial and health troubles from his wife, Millicent, played to hysterical perfection by Billie Burke. The Great Depression is presented in microcosm as Millicent frets about throwing the ultimate society dinner, oblivious to the world tumbling down around her. She is forced to invite to her precious party such undesirables as crass financier Dan Packard ("He smells Oklahoma!"). Even worse in Millicent's eyes than Packard (Wallace Beery, doing an impressive steamroller imitation) is his social-climbing wife, Kitty (Jean Harlow, never funnier). Be sure to watch for Harlow's brief encounter with Marie Dressler, who brings an extraordinary winking wisdom to the role of aging star Carlotta Vance. As the two enter the dining room in the film's final scene, Harlow makes an offhand remark that elicits from Dressler one of the great screen double takes of all time. Like so much of Dinner at Eight, the moment is priceless.

Newspaper comedy doesn't seem like an MGM genre--ink-stained wretches don't go with Adrian gowns and white deco furniture--but Jack Conway, the designated bull in the Metro china shop (Boom Town, Too Hot to Handle) does what he can to bring some dash and flair to Libeled Lady's wildly complicated script. Spencer Tracy is the tough city editor who goes to some spectacular extremes when socialite Myrna Loy files a $5 million libel suit against his paper for calling her a notorious home-wrecker; he hires celebrated ladies' man William Powell to seduce Loy and asks his long-suffering fiancée, Jean Harlow, to marry Powell temporarily so she can play the wronged wife when Loy and Powell are discovered together. The couples crisscross, with frenetic and not entirely unpredictable results, but much of the pleasure here lies in seeing these iconic stars being so thoroughly themselves. The dialogue strains for champagne wit, but the movie's most memorable moment is pure, rotgut slapstick--Powell's bout with an unruly fly-fishing rod.

This one's all about the ladies. In Stage Door, an absolutely terrific 1937 gem, a Manhattan boardinghouse for aspiring actresses houses an amazing roster of golden-era performers--some of whom, like their characters, were just breaking in. It's hard to say who's in best form here: Katharine Hepburn in blueblood mode, Ginger Rogers streetwise, Andrea Leeds suffering, Lucille Ball and Ann Miller impossibly young, and Eve Arden being, well, splendidly Eve Ardenish. The sassy comedy and sober life lessons are wonderfully mixed by the underrated director Gregory La Cava (My Man Godfrey), who captures the brashness of '30s female chatter in a much pleasanter way than the more famous The Women. Hepburn's sublime attempts to wrestle with the line about calla lilies being in bloom will make you smile long after the movie's over.

Customer Reviews:

LAUGH OUT LOUD! FUNNY!!!!.......2007-06-09

Six of the all time great movies. Its a must for classic movie fans. You really get to see how good Jean Harlow was at comedy in "Dinner at Eight". Lets not forget Carole Lombard what a great comedian and actress she was in "To Be or Not To Be" her last film before she was killed in plane crash. Sometimes we forget how good they really were. They just don't make good movies like these anymore. I couldn't name you a good actor today with this much staying power. There will never be another Cary Grant, James Stewart, William Powell and Katherine Hepburn. You can watch these movies over and over. I know I will..

SHAME ON WARNER BROTHERS!.......2007-05-05

Shame on Warner Brothers for calling this collection a COMEDY Collection. And the other reviewers - where's your candor? Yes, Philadelphia Story is a classic comedy. But DINNER AT EIGHT, which has a few (a very few) funny moments, is, in fact a very dark story involving suicide, hateful marriages and people at the end of their means; with no particular redeeming quality. STAGE DOOR, it had funny moments, yes, but always with a very sad, dark suicide looming. TO BE OR NOT, this is like a skit, a joke, being stretched out to an hour and a half. LIBELED LADY was funny, but hardly a CLASSIC. BRINGING UP BABY is screwball comedy, but we all know that this was NEVER considered a CLASSIC. My recommendation (now that I feel bad I spent so much based on the other reviewers) - buy the films you know individually. One at a time. PHILADELPHIA STORY is a MUST HAVE.
Then you can laugh at the rest of us for buying movies we'll never watch.

A wonderful collection of classic comedies.......2007-03-20

I just recently finished watching all of the movies in this boxed set, and I couldn't be happier with it. Warner's has been going boxed set crazy over the past couple of years, boxing up into collections just about every movie in their vaults. Some collections are good, and some not so good, but this one is excellent. Three of the movies are well known, and the other three are less known. Probably the best known film is "The Philadelphia Story" that got Katharine Hepburn out of her "box office poison" era for good and won James Stewart his only Best Actor Oscar - about two or three Oscars shy of what he should have had in my opinion.

"Dinner at Eight" is a 1933 ensemble comedy using the "Grand Hotel Formula" that had won that film the Best Picture Oscar the year before. It is a comedy revolving around a group of people preparing to go to a dinner party and shows how their lives strangely intertwine beyond even their awareness. Remarkably, I don't think it even got nominated for an Oscar, but it has held up well over time and has one of the best last lines of any movie ever. As everyone is planning to go into dinner Jean Harlow is telling Marie Dressler how she has been reading that machinery has been taking over everything and soon they would all be replaced by machines. Marie Dressler looks Jean Harlow up and down as only she could do and says "My dear I don't think you need to ever worry about that."

"Bringing Up Baby" has Katharine Hepburn playing a scatter-brained young lady who gets Cary Grant involved in her inane plot to transport a tame leopard her brother sent her to her country estate. The film moves at such a fast clip with so much going on that it seems exhausting, but it is great entertainment. This film actually didn't catch on that much until years later.

"Libeled Lady" was the pleasant surprise of the bunch. I had never seen it before but it was quite funny. It all revolves around a false rumor about a young lady that gets reported as truth in a New York paper. The paper faces a libel suit and financial ruin if a way is not found to set up the "libeled lady" so that she appears to be in a genuine scandal, thus lessening the paper's chances of losing in court. This film has some great physical comedy from William Powell of all people.

"To Be Or Not To Be" is a comedy set in World War II Poland and involves an attempt by the occupied Poles to stop a spy from getting to German headquarters with the names of members of the resistance. It pairs Carole Lombard with Jack Benny, but strangely enough the combination does work.

"Stage Door" is a very good film about a group of women living in a boarding house all trying to make it on Broadway. I'm not sure what it is doing in a set of comic movies, though. It is actually more of a melodrama than a comedy, though it has some very witty banter between the struggling actresses at their rooming house and a great performance by Adolphe Menjou as a sophisticated cad, which is a part he played so well in several films of the 1930's.

There are bonus discs included with "Bringing Up Baby" and "The Philadelphia Story". "The Philadelphia Story" includes a feature on Katharine Hepburn's life and career, and "Bringing Up Baby" has a second disc that has a similar tribute to Cary Grant. There are also features included on the directors of these two films. My advice is to buy this set. It's a tremendous value and will give you many hours of entertainment.

Big Belly laughs in every single movie.......2006-06-17

I defy you to find a modern day movie where the wise cracks are funnier than any thing you'll find in each and every one of these 70 year plus old movies! Most of the dialogue was spoken at Tommy Gun blast speed, with every word clearly enunciated - a feat in itself! All the men are mostly in suits or tuxes, and the women wear the most beautiful outfits, created by the top designers in the world at the time. Visually, these movies are a feast for the eyes. It also helps that most of the actors and actresses were considered the most handsome and beautiful at the time. Hey - I can get ugly at home! The quality is also excellent considering how old these movies are. I'm an old-movie buff and I remember browsing the TV guide when I was a teenager and then setting my clock to get up at 3am to catch one of these movies whenever they were on. They still hold up and now I can watch them whenever I want and I am grateful. This is a must-have if you like a good story line, clever dialogue and honest laughs.

This is nice to have on hand.......2006-03-10

Sometimes my life, like so many others, gets a little overwhelming. These are perfect for when you need a 2 hr. break from reality. Make the popcorn, pull the shades, pop one of these in and totally escape. And it's cheaper than therapy. :-)

Bringing Up Baby (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Average customer rating:

Shipping fiasco
Oh 'Baby,' this is a funny film!
Love in the Jungle
The "screw" in "screwball comedies"
Bringing Up Baby

Bringing Up Baby (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Starring: Katharine Hepburn , Cary Grant , Charles Ruggles , Walter Catlett , and Barry Fitzgerald
Director: Howard Hawks
Manufacturer: Turner Home Ent
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

Classic Comedies | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

Screwball Comedy | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

DVDs as Low as $7.49 | The Big DVD Sale | Stores | DVD | Video

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ASIN: B0007TKNCY
Release Date: 2005-03-01

Amazon.com essential video

Customer Reviews:

Shipping fiasco.......2007-09-14

Took over a month to straighten out delivery and Amazon changed original shipping destination without my approval.

Oh 'Baby,' this is a funny film!.......2007-08-23

Love in the Jungle.......2007-08-19

The "screw" in "screwball comedies".......2007-07-07

Bringing Up Baby.......2007-06-20

While the movie was a flop with the audience when it came out in the 30's,
it is a hilarious comedy, lots of slapstick, with Hepburn and Grant at their best.

Average customer rating:

Would you believe a Howard Hawk's film?
MADCAP SCREWBALL COMEDY...

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000B5PWDO

Product Description

Genre: Family / Romance / Comedy

Customer Reviews:

Would you believe a Howard Hawk's film?.......2006-05-29

Bringing up baby is as described frantic, fast and noisy. You do not have time to get your breath. All the actors are at their best. There is a story line and a consistency that keeps this movie from being a bunch of one liners.

David Huxley (Cary Grant) is a paleontologist who has an important find. He crosses paths with Susan Vance (Katherine Hepburn) who is not all there but very witty. Susan has a secret "Baby", her pet leopard.

One of the themes is mistaking Baby for another more dangerous leopard that escaped from captivity. Many movies did this with black bags. However bags don't bite. And again every time Carry Grant gets mixed up with Katharine something inevitably goes wrong and this snowballs as the movie progresses. The movie moves fast enough that you may want to watch it again.

MADCAP SCREWBALL COMEDY..........2005-08-30

This is a terrific, old fashioned, madcap, screwball comedy. Deftly directed by Howard Hawkes, the pace is frenetic from the get-go and never lets up. Starring Cary Grant, as a straight-laced paleontologist, and Katherine Hepburn, as an impulsive and beautiful heiress, this film is simply about as good as comedy gets.

The plot itself is simple. David Huxley (Cary Grant), a noted paleontologist, is trying to get a philanthropical grant of money for his museum from a wealthy donor. In his quest for this charitable gift, he runs into Susan (Katherine Hepburn), who, unbeknownst to him, is the niece and prospective heiress to his potential philanthropist's fortune. Once David meets up with this madcap heiress, his life will never be the same.

The film is noted for its highly improbable situations, its rat-a-tat-tat, stacatto delivery of lines, its frenetic pacing, and impeccable comedic timing. Toss in a missing dinosaur bone, a little dog with a fondness for such, a domesticated leopard (if there is such a thing), a not so tame leopard, a great cast and script, and voila, one ends up with a great film!

Cary Grant is marvelous as David Huxley, the straight-laced, befuddled man of science who is drawn into improbable situations by Susan. Katherine Hepburn is sensational as Susan, the airhead heiress whose hair-brained ideas just lead to trouble. Of course, Susan falls for David, and the games begin. In addition to Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn, the film has notable performances by Charles Ruggles, as big game hunter Major Applegate, Barry Fitzgerald as the hapless hired hand, Mr. Gogarty, and Walter Catlett, as Slocum, the criminally stupid town constable.

It is with good reason that this film made The Entertainment Weekly list of the 100 best comedies ever made. It is an assessment with which I heartily concur. This is a superlative, vintage film that is well worth having in one's personal collection. Bravo!

Bringing Up Baby (1938. Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Charles Ruggles)

Average customer rating:

Bringing Up Baby (1938. Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Charles Ruggles)
Director: Howard Hawks
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Average customer rating:

Shipping fiasco
Oh 'Baby,' this is a funny film!
Love in the Jungle
The "screw" in "screwball comedies"
Bringing Up Baby

Bringing Up Baby [Region 2]
Starring: Katharine Hepburn , Cary Grant , Charles Ruggles , Walter Catlett , and Barry Fitzgerald
Director: Howard Hawks
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

( B ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

Family Films | Kids & Family | Genres | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

ASIN: B00004X07M

Amazon.com essential video

Customer Reviews:

Shipping fiasco.......2007-09-14

Took over a month to straighten out delivery and Amazon changed original shipping destination without my approval.

Oh 'Baby,' this is a funny film!.......2007-08-23

Love in the Jungle.......2007-08-19

The "screw" in "screwball comedies".......2007-07-07

Bringing Up Baby.......2007-06-20

While the movie was a flop with the audience when it came out in the 30's,
it is a hilarious comedy, lots of slapstick, with Hepburn and Grant at their best.

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DVD

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