Movie · 1938 · Comedy, Romance · 1h 42m · NR · English
Curator score: 8.7/10 (178.3K ratings)
And so begins the hilarious adventure of Professor David Huxley and Miss Susan Vance, a flutter-brained vixen with love in her heart!
Overview
David Huxley is waiting to get a bone he needs for his museum collection. Through a series of strange circumstances, he meets Susan Vance, and the duo have a series of misadventures which include a leopard called Baby.
Ratings
Curator score: 8.7/10
IMDb: 7.8/10
Letterboxd: 4.00/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 97%
Metacritic: 91
TMDB: 7.5/10
Director
Howard Hawks
Production
RKO Radio Pictures
Cast
Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Charles Ruggles, Walter Catlett, Barry Fitzgerald, May Robson, Fritz Feld, Leona Roberts, George Irving, Tala Birell, Virginia Walker, John Kelly, William Benedict, Billy Bevan, Ward Bond, Jack Carson, Judith Ford, Edward Gargan, Paul Guilfoyle, Karl 'Karchy' Kosiczky
Curator Review
Verdict
A screwball classic that still feels alive: fast, absurd, and gloriously chaotic, with two stars weaponizing charm and timing against each other. Its appeal is the escalating nonsense—mistaken identities, social embarrassment, and a leopard named Baby—played at breakneck speed with immaculate comic precision.
Best for
fans of classic screwball comedy
viewers who like rapid-fire dialogue and escalating farce
romance-comedy fans who enjoy combative chemistry
people who love physical comedy and pratfalls
audiences open to pre-Code-era energy and old Hollywood style
Skip if
you prefer grounded or realistic humor
you dislike frantic pacing and constant interruptions
you want romance with emotional sincerity over chaos
animal-related hijinks make you uneasy
you need modern comic rhythms or contemporary sensibilities
Overview
Bringing Up Baby is one of the great engines of American comedy: a movie that seems to run on pure velocity, with every scene designed to topple into the next. Howard Hawks keeps the tone feather-light even as the situations become more and more ridiculous, and the result is a masterclass in controlled chaos.
Worth noting
Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant are the whole show, and the delight is watching them bounce off each other with total commitment. Hepburn turns Susan into a force of nature, while Grant lets David unravel in exquisitely funny stages, from dignified scholar to bewildered disaster.
Bottom line
What makes it endure is not just the jokes but the precision. The film understands timing, interruption, and escalation better than most comedies made decades later. If you enjoy movies where elegance and absurdity collide, this is essential viewing.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Anna Imhof 🌸 (5★) · 5694 likes
"Production was frequently delayed due to uncontrollable laughing fits between Hepburn and Grant."
eely (5★) · 5036 likes
Cary Grant wearing nothing but a fur trimmed chiffon dressing gown while jumping in the air and saying "I just went GAY all of a sudden" is the only thing that has ever mattered to me
kailey (3.5★) · 3876 likes
cary grant: i-
katharine hepburn stuffing as many words in her mouth as she possibly can: alksjflKJFKSLFJskljfksdlfjslkafjlskfjsklfjskafjskl
cary grant: wait-
everyone else in this movie talking at the speed of light: bambammazzeltamdoopbopbamBAM
cary grant: glasses
leopard: singing
cary grant: falls on his face
nora (5★) · 2281 likes
my favorite genre really is movies where flustered man gets tricked and endangered by conniving woman who thinks he’s hot and likes to make him suffer
phoebe 💫 (4★) · 2206 likes
A comprehensive list of moods:
- susan yelling "don't leave me!" to david like 113 times throughout the movie
- "they've got baby" / "forget baby" / "where's baby"
- "THE INTERCOSTAL CLAVICLE"
- david and susan singing "I can't give you anything but love" so many times that they start to harmonize
- baby’s evil doppelgänger
- "hello is this zoo"
- "his name is mr. bone" "well this mr. bones -" "one bone."
- "the riverbed's changed!"
1936 · Comedy · 1h 35m · NR · Curator 9.2/10 (28.7K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, Pure Flix, FlixFling, IndieFlix, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
A polished screwball classic with social satire, manic energy, and elegant comic timing.