“Peabody? WHAT Peabody?”

Watched Bringing Up Baby last night.

The cool thing about this was: I own a copy of the movie, of course, but in VHS form. My VCR is on the fritz at the moment, so I rented a copy of it during my afternoon errand-running thingamajiggie yesterday. I didn’t even look at it closely – it’s bringing up Baby – that was all I needed to know.

But what a treat to find that it was a 2-disc extravaganza, with the amazing Cary Grant documentary called A Class Apart (I’ve seen it before – it’s so in-depth, with some WONDERFUL footage you’ll never see anywhere else – home movie stuff, etc.) – but also: there was a commentary track for the movie given by Peter Bogdanovich – who is probably one of the most knowledgeable film historians in this country. He also had been friends with Cary Grant at the end of Grant’s life (and had tried desperately to get Grant to be in What’s Up Doc, Bogdanovich’s tribute to the screwball comedies of the 30s, especially Bringing Up Baby). Bogdanovich had also interviewed Howard Hawks extensively about the movie, so he is basically a wealth of information.

What I loved about it too is that Bogdanovich, even though he has probably seen the movie like 50 times – no, way more than that – he has made studying this movie his life’s work – he still burst into laughter at certain moments.

The title to this post was one of those moments. It’s a simple moment, and no way could I ever describe WHY it is funny … it is just that Cary Grant’s entire essence is comedic in that movie, without him EVER begging for laughs. He is playing the square absent-minded professor as seriously as can be … and we all roar with laughter.

There were a lot of cool revelations from Bogdanovich about the movie – one was that Dudley Nichols (the screenwriter) had gotten the idea for his script when he had been the screenwriter for John Ford’s Mary of Scotland in 1936, starring Katharine Hepburn.

John Ford was notoriously terrifying to actors (but he was also notoriously generous – it all depended on his mood). He could be brutal. He launched Spencer Tracy’s career, pretty much – he was very very good with actors he loved – but NOBODY was immune. He even reduced John Wayne, the most macho man in the world, and one of his greatest collaborators, to tears once. Wayne said, with tears on his face, “That goddamned son of a bitch …”

So Ford could be brutal.

If you did something that displeased him, he could “put you on ice”. Freeze you out, not speak to you for years. If he decided he didn’t like you on the first day of shooting, then you were in for a time of HELL.

Hepburn was not afraid of John Ford. She would tease him, tell him to shut up, brush off his terrifying rages with a laugh, she completely bossed him around … and somehow (probably because he fell in love with her) … he not only tolerated it but ATE IT UP. He LOVED it. A woman who could stand up to him! Tell him off! And yet do so in such a pretty and comedic way!

The two of them would sit at the lunch table and tease one another mercilessly, while the other actors and crew members cowered in fear.

He even got so frustrated directing one of the scenes that he gave up, in a rage, and said to Hepburn: “You finish it.” And she did. She directed one of the scenes in that movie … John Ford? Major director giving up the reins? Well, he gave up the reins to her.

Dudley Nichols, screenwriter, watched this dynamic and was fascinated by it, drawn in, wondering at the mechanics. How did it work? Why was Hepburn somehow safe from the wrath of Ford? How did she get away with it?

Hepburn was blissfully unaware (or so it seemed) of the effect Ford had on others, and was also unaware of when she was treading on dangerous waters. She forged right ahead. And Ford not only let her … but he encouraged her. There was something in her that released a warmth and a sincerity in him. A vulnerability. Hepburn, in her typical genius way with men, saw straight to the vulnerability, and didn’t let the rages and the glowers fool her. Yet she also didn’t emasculate him. But somehow just teased him out of his black moods.

Nichols, in writing Bringing up Baby, used that nugget of truth between Hepburn and Ford to create the dynamic of Dr. David Huxley and Susan Vance. Huxley, of course, was not a man filled with rage, or a macho guy, or even a guy who could deal with his anger. But he certainly was extremely cranky … and Susan never EVER seemed to notice the crankiness, but just breezed right on with her plans, oblivious, involving him deeper and deeper in her insanity.

There’s one scene (it’s after he takes the shower and she steals his clothes – and he finds himself dressed up in her brother’s ridiculous jodhpurs) and she comes into the room to check on him and dissolves into laughter at the first sight of the absurd outfit on Dr. David Huxley. Huxley says something like, “Well, I couldn’t find my other clothes” – but basically, in that Cary Grant clipped-consanant way, he shouts this RIGHT AT HER HEAD. He doesn’t “lose it”, it’s not a temper tantrum – he remains Very. Precise. With. His. Words – but he SHOUTS that line at her head. It’s uproarious. And she just bats her eyelashes up at him and tells him how good-looking he looks without his glasses.

It’s feckin’ FUNNY.

All of this came from Nichols’ observing the very specific dynamic between Ford and Hepburn two years before.