DVD Movie Guide @ dvdmg.com
.
Review Archive:  # | A-C | D-F | G-I | J-L | M-O | P-R | S-U | V-Z | Viewer Ratings | Main
WARNER

MOVIE INFO

Director:
Howard Hawks
Cast:
Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Charles Ruggles, Walter Catlett, Barry Fitzgerald, May Robson, Fritz Feld, Leona Roberts, George Irving
Writing Credits:
Hagar Wilde (story), Dudley Nichols, Hagar Wilde

Synopsis:
All the earnest paleontologist (Cary Grant) wants is an intercostal clavicle to complete his brontosaurus skeleton. What he gets is an out-of-control toboggan ride with a scatterbrained heiress (Katharine Hepburn) nuts about him (or maybe just nuts). Riding along areia dog named George, a leopard named Baby, a snooty society matron with a spare million, a caretaker on the sauce and more. In this giddy romp directed by Howard Hawks, Grant ends up in a negligee, Hepburn ends up in a bottomless evening gown, everyone ends up in jail and Bringing Up Baby ends up as the most glorious laughter-inducing movie ever!

MPAA:
Rated NR

DVD DETAILS
Presentation:
Fullscreen 1.33:1
Audio:
English Monaural
Subtitles:
English
French
Spanish
Closed-captioned

Runtime: 102 min.
Price: $26.99
Release Date: 3/1/2005

Bonus:
Disc One
• Audio Commentary With Filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich
• Howard Hawks Movie Trailer Gallery
Disc Two
• “Cary Grant: A Class Apart” Documentary
• “The Men Who Made the Movies: Howard Hawks” Documentary
Campus Cinderella Short
• “A Star Is Hatched” Cartoon


PURCHASE @ AMAZON.COM

EQUIPMENT
Sony 36" WEGA KV-36FS12 Monitor; Sony DA333ES Processor/Receiver; Panasonic CV-50 DVD Player using component outputs; Michael Green Revolution Cinema 6i Speakers (all five); Sony SA-WM40 Subwoofer.

RELATED REVIEWS

[an error occurred while processing this directive]


Bringing Up Baby: Special Edition (1938)

Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (March 7, 2005)

And then there were three! Back in the summer of 2000 when I first decided I would review every member of the AFI 100 list, I thought I might never finish the task. After all, at that time, only 63 of the 100 films were out on DVD. Granted, the fact that almost two-thirds of the honored pictures hit DVD in a span of barely three years was pretty good, but it still left a long way to go.

During the nearly five years since I started our AFI page, we’ve gotten another 34 selected flicks on DVD. (This doesn’t count the many titles reissued in more deluxe versions.) In an odd coincidence, the 97th film to come out on DVD also falls in 97th place on the AFI list: 1938’s Bringing Up Baby.

The film opens at the Stuyvesant Museum of Natural History, where we meet Dr. David Huxley (Cary Grant) as he reconstructs dinosaur bones to assemble a full brontosaurus skeleton. The henpecked David is engaged to prim and proper assistant Alice Swallow (Virginia Walker). The no-nonsense Alice wants their marriage dedicated to his work and sees no time for fun or relaxation.

David is trying to snare a million dollar contribution from Alexander Peabody (George Irving), the representative for Elizabeth Random (May Robson). While they schmooze on the golf course, David runs into brash and headstrong Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn). They butt heads on the fairway and then again at dinner, and her goofiness threatens to subvert David’s fundraising efforts.

A silver lining appears when Susan tells David that she’s friends with Peabody and she can influence him. Along the way, Susan demands that David accompany her to Connecticut so she can deliver a leopard named Baby. The movie follows their shenanigans as they take the cat to Connecticut and encounter all sorts of silliness and complications.

That synopsis doesn’t cover the film terribly well, mostly because Baby features an absolutely absurd plot. The basic concepts related to the leopard couldn’t possibly be more ridiculous, and the other circumstances that occur aren’t all that much more connected to reality.

Somehow director Howard Hawks makes it work. Largely that’s because Baby zips along at a breakneck pace. My, does this flick zoom past us! Occasionally I started to think the screenwriter was paid by the word, as this 102-minute effort packs in more dialogue and action than most movies twice its length.

This means that Baby needs to race from one insane circumstance to another without any pause. Somehow the pace never seems annoying or obnoxiously frenetic. Instead, we always remain involved in the flick, and the speed with which it moves keeps us interested. Actually, it benefits things since we never have the time to dwell on the story’s absurdity.

Of course, a terrific cast helps. I admit I used to think that Cary Grant never did more than play Cary Grant in his movies, but efforts like Baby demonstrate his range. It seems odd to see him so goofy and hyper, but he makes it work. Hepburn also takes a character who probably should be reprehensible due to her extreme level of self-absorption and creates a likable and engaging personality. The stars dig into the movie’s spirit and bounce off each other well.

Brining Up Baby isn’t the kind of movie you discuss and analyze after it ends. You watch it, you laugh for 100 minutes, and you go on with your life. That’s good enough, as Baby offers a bright and brisk piece that consistently entertains.


The DVD Grades: Picture B-/ Audio B-/ Bonus B+

Bringing Up Baby appears in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 on this single-sided, double-layered DVD; due to those dimensions, the image has not been enhanced for 16X9 televisions. A generally decent picture, Baby suffered from a few too many problems to rate a grade much above average.

Most of the concerns connected to sharpness. Although a lot of the movie demonstrated acceptable definition, the movie never came across as particularly concise. In addition, more than a few somewhat soft shots occurred, a factor exacerbated by some mild edge enhancement. I noticed no issues with shimmering or jagged edges, though.

A relative positive came from the general lack of source flaws. Occasional examples of specks, marks, blotches and spots appeared, but these remained reasonably minor for a flick of this one’s age. Blacks demonstrated pretty good depth, but contrast looked a bit off, as some shots appeared a little too bright. Shadows were acceptably defined, though, as the smattering of low-light shots showed decent delineation. Overall, Baby was consistently watchable; it just didn’t seem like anything particularly noteworthy.

Similar thoughts related to the monaural soundtrack of Bringing Up Baby. A perfectly acceptable track for its era, the audio didn’t do anything particularly special. Speech sounded a little brittle and showed a smidgen of edginess, but the lines were intelligible. Effects played a small role in this talky flick. Though they lacked much life, they were clean and without any difficulties.

Music also played a very minor role, as only a few instances of score appeared. These were typically thin but sounded decent overall. A light layer of background noise appeared throughout the movie. Those elements didn’t interfere much, though, as the minor rumble stayed subdued. This was a soundtrack that worked just fine for a movie from 1938.

For its initial DVD release, Bringing Up Baby arrives as a two-disc special edition. On Disc One, the main attraction comes from an audio commentary with filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich. He offers a running, screen-specific track that only sporadically provides quality information. Bogdanovich gets into occasional details about the production, the structure of the film and its genre, and where it fits in movie history. He also discusses the way the movie influenced him, with a specific emphasis on What’s Up, Doc?

The best parts of the commentary come when Bogdanovich quotes some old interviews he did with director Howard Hawks. On those occasions, we get useful remarks about the film and the director’s work. I also like some of Bogdanovich’s insights into the methods used to create the scenes in which the actors interact with the leopard. Unfortunately, much of the time Bogdanovich does little more than echo funny lines and laugh. A fair amount of dead air occurs as well. Spurts of quality information appear here, but the commentary sags too much of the time and doesn’t give us much.

Fans of advertisements will love the Howard Hawks Trailer Gallery. This domain includes five promos for Hawks films. We get the trailer for Baby itself plus clips for 1941’s Sergeant York, 1944’s To Have and Have Not, 1946’s The Big Sleep, and 1959’s Rio Bravo. It’s a nice little collection.

As we move to DVD Two, we’ll focus mostly on two separate documentaries. Cary Grant: A Class Apart runs 86 minutes and 57 seconds. It combines archival materials, clips from Grant flicks, and interviews. We hear from Bogdanovich, former wives Barbara Grant and Betsy Drake, film historians Jeanine Basinger and James Harvey, friends Roderick Mann and Ralph Lauren, authors Nancy Nelson and Todd McCarthy, film critics Elvis Mitchell and David Denby, directors George Cukor (in 1973), Howard Hawks (1967), Alfred Hitchcock (1966), Stanley Donen and Mel Shavelson, screenwriter Ernest Lehman, writer Sidney Sheldon, and actors Martin Landau, Ralph Bellamy (1988), Dina Merrill, Eva Marie Saint, Jill St. John, Deborah Kerr (1988), George Kennedy (2003), Samantha Eggar, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (1988). We also get some quotes from Grant’s autobiographical essays.

”Apart” starts with Grant’s underprivileged childhood and disappearance of his mother, interest in theater and early experiences, his move to movies and the growth of his screen personality, personal relationships and Grant’s continuing career, controversies like his alleged homosexuality, the actor’s more conservative choices for roles as he aged, Grant’s penny-pinching ways, additional marriages, Grant’s refusal to have children and other personal complications, more film highs and lows, his use of LSD, the end of his acting career, fatherhood at last, and his final years.

While most shows of this sort simply tear through basics about the subject’s career and personal life, “Apart” digs in with more substantial depth. Rather than just tell us dates and people involved in Grant’s films, we often get interpretation of his work and information about other elements. Those insights make this a much richer program than usual. The moments that discuss Grant’s personal life fill in various blanks, but “Apart” mostly stays with his movies, and that makes it informative and engaging. It’s a terrific documentary.

For the second documentary, we get The Men Who Made the Movies: Howard Hawks. Narrated by filmmaker Sydney Pollack, it lasts 55 minutes and includes comments from Hawks across various years. Presented in chronological order, “Hawks” looks at career highlights. We find out things like the development of the director’s signature dialogue style as well as specific elements of certain flicks.

Unlike the rich and insightful “Apart”, “Hawks” mainly acts as a compilation of movie clips. The majority of the show focuses on those. Pollack’s narration fills in some gaps and Hawks’ anecdotes tell us some details about the productions. The latter are good but they pop up too infrequently. The show becomes acceptably informative, but I’d prefer something with fewer film snippets and more behind the scenes details.

Two shorts round out the set. Campus Cinderella goes for 18 minutes and 23 seconds. It presents a mildly entertaining musical romantic comedy about an attempt to land a star college athlete. The animated A Star Is Hatched takes eight minutes and seven seconds as it spoofs movie stars via a chicken who aspires to fame. It has its moments.

Probably the best-realized example of the “screwball comedy”, Bringing Up Baby beats us into submission with its relentless procession of insanity. The movie easily could have gone sour, but it works quite well, as the combination of bright dialogue and peppy performances makes it a winner.

The DVD presents decent but unspectacular picture and audio. Despite a lackluster commentary, the supplements work well, mainly due to an excellent look at the career of Cary Grant. While the DVD has its issues, it succeeds as a whole and earns my recommendation.

Viewer Film Ratings: 4.3478 Stars Number of Votes: 23
185:
14:
1 3:
02:
31:
View Averages for all rated titles.