On This Day...Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Cary Grant's 30th full length film and his 2nd with Katharine Hepburn, was Bringing Up Baby, and was released on this date in 1938.

Summary:

Dr. David Huxley (Cary Grant) has two reasons to be excited. He is about to be married and the final piece to a brontosaurus, the showpiece to his museum exhibit, will soon be in his possession. Furthermore, if he plays his cards right, a wealthy donor will donate $1 million to his museum, to aid his palaeontological collection. 

Unfortunately, he meets Susan (Katharine Hepburn), a woman who seems destined to unintentionally destroy his life. Huxley soon finds himself playing nursemaid to Baby, her leopard.

"Cary Grant does a nice job of underlining the situation."

- Otis Ferguson, The New Republic.

Cast:

 Katharine Hepburn ... Susan Vance
 Cary Grant ... David Huxley
 Charles Ruggles ... Major Applegate
 Walter Catlett ... Slocum
 Barry Fitzgerald ... Mr. Gogarty
 May Robson ... Aunt Elizabeth
 Fritz Feld ... Dr. Lehman
 Leona Roberts ... Mrs. Gogarty
 George Irving ... Alexander Peabody
 Tala Birell ... Mrs. Lehman
 Virginia Walker ... Alice Swallow
 John Kelly ... Elmer

Did You Know?

The scene in which Susan's dress is ripped was inspired by something that happened to Cary Grant. He was at the Roxy Theater one night and his pants zipper was down when it caught on the back of a woman's dress. Grant impulsively followed her. When he told this story to Howard Hawks, Hawks loved it and put it into the film.

Christopher Reeve based his performance as Clark Kent in Superman (1978) and its three sequels on Cary Grant's character David Huxley from this film.


Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant frequently socialized off the set, double-dating with their respective steadies at the time, Howard Hughes and Phyllis Brooks. They loved working on the film so much that they frequently arrived early. Since Howard Hawks was usually late, they spent their time working out new bits of comic business.

David makes reference to the notorious characters "Mickey the Mouse" and "Donald the Duck." RKO was Walt Disney's distributor at the time.

Cary Grant was not fond of the tame leopard that was used in the film. Once, to torture him, Katharine Hepburn put a stuffed leopard through a vent in the top of his dressing room. "He was out of there like lightning," wrote Hepburn in her autobiography Me: Stories of My Life

The scenes which involved Baby roaming around freely, notably in Susan's apartment, had to be done in a cage, with the camera and sound picked up through holes in the fencing. In fact, when Cary Grant steps into the bathroom to have a look at "Baby", there are subtle but visible reflections on the transparent wall between the actor and the leopard.

Quotes:

Mrs. Random: Well who are you?
David Huxley: I don't know. I'm not quite myself today.
Mrs. Random: Well, you look perfectly idiotic in those clothes.
David Huxley: These aren't my clothes.
Mrs. Random: Well, where are your clothes?
David Huxley: I've lost my clothes!
Mrs. Random: But why are you wearing these clothes?
David Huxley: Because I just went GAY all of a sudden!
Mrs. Random: Now see here young man, stop this nonsense. What are you doing?
David Huxley: I'm sitting in the middle of 42nd Street waiting for a bus.

David Huxley: Now it isn't that I don't like you, Susan, because, after all, in moments of quiet, I'm strangely drawn toward you, but - well, there haven't been any quiet moments.

David Huxley: When a man is wrestling a leopard in the middle of a pond, he's in no position to run.

David Huxley: First you drop an olive, and then I sit on my hat. It all fits perfectly.
Susan Vance: Oh, yes, but you can't do that trick without dropping some of the olives; it takes practice.
David Huxley: What, to sit on my hat?
Susan Vance: No, to drop an olive.

David Huxley: You don't understand: this is my car!
Susan Vance: You mean this is your car? Your golf ball? Your car? Is there anything in the world that doesn't belong to you?
David Huxley: Yes, thank heaven, YOU!

On Set:

With Howard Hawks, Katharine Hepburn and Nissa(Baby).

Lobby Cards:

Directed by Howard Hawks.

Produced by RKO Radio.

Running time: 102 minutes.

Artwork by Rebekah Hawley of Studio 36.