The Sheila Variations

Bringing Up Baby

One of my favorite movies EVER. The same damn scenes make me laugh out loud, regardless of how many times I have seen it. It's so RIDICULOUS, so JOYFUL.

Howling with laughter over:

-- Hepburn driving away from the golf course with Cary Grant hanging onto her running board, and he's shouting at her to Stop - and Mr. Peabody, the millionaire, looks up and all he sees is Grant's head zipping by above the bushes. You can't see the car, just Grant's head.

-- Grant's pratfall in the bar. I am laughing out loud right now just typing about it. Hepburn drops an olive on the floor, he walks by in the next instance, and his feet fly out from under him. And down he goes. All in one take.

-- When she rips his coat. The way he freezes, his tailcoat torn straight up the back.

-- Then the whole bit when the back of her dress falls off, and she's unaware of it - strolling away from him with her bloomers seen to all. Cary Grant, who is the biggest bumbling fool in the movie, and who - I don't think - EVER gets out a complete sentence - keeps trying to tell her her dress has ripped, she keeps cutting him off - He tries to back her up against the wall, and she has NO IDEA why he is acting this way. He implores with her, "But something HORRIBLE has happened!" heh heh heh. Then ... she breaks away from this man who she thinks is a lunatic, and he, a desperate man, lunges after her, and smacks his top hat over her bum. She stops, stunned. Says flatly, "What on EARTH is the matter with you?" She turns to look at him, and he swoops his arm around behind her to smack her on the bum again. It's (obviously) a totally visual bit, physical comedy, but I HOWL with laughter every time I see it. Especially because of Cary Grant. He is in a tux, but he is a big GOOFball, completely put upon, terrified of Katherine Hepburn, he has these huge thick glasses ... and he TRIES to keep his dignity, but then suddenly there he is, smacking his top hat against Katherine Hepburn's ass.

-- One of my favorite movies ever is What's Up Doc - it's not exactly based on Bringing Up Baby, but it is inspired by Bringing Up Baby and has many almost identical moments. Including a very very confused scene in a jail, with 15 people all trying to tell the crazy story all at once ... just like the BRILLIANT courtroom scene in What's Up Doc.

Other similar elements:

There's the bumbling scientist. The bumbling scientist is engaged to a tight-wad woman who only loves his work. The fiance is addicted to her husband's success, she LIVES so that HE can be a success. Also, since he's such a bumbling idiot, he obviously needs her to make his schedule, remind him of appointments. And then into the picture comes this raging lunatic woman - with disaster following her at every step. Of course the raging lunatic is also incredibly charming and captivating. (Katherine Hepburn in Bringing up Baby and Barbra Streisand in What's Up Doc.) The poor bumbling scientist gets wrapped up in a huge drama involving the lunatic-woman ... and hi-jinks ensue ... and of course, the entire time that the bumbling scientist is screaming at Disaster-Girl: "GO AWAY. YOU MAKE EVERYTHING CRAZY" - he is also falling in love with her.

The bumbling scientist wears glasses in both movies. And at some point during the screwball plot, the glasses are lost (in the case of What's Up Doc he throws them out the car window in utter despair: "JUDY! I NEED MY GLASSES! I CAN'T SEE!" Judy (Streisand) puts the glasses on his nose. He takes one look, says, "Oh God, I can see" and tosses the glasses out the window.) And once the glasses are gone, you can see what a handsome fellow this geek scientist is ... It's quite purposeful. Ryan O'Neal in What's Up Doc gives one of the funniest performances I have ever seen in my life, as the bumbling musicologist. Once he's in the court room at the end, all disheveled, glasses lost ... you can see the sex appeal.

That's the whole thing with these movies. What is most obvious to the audience is completely invisible to the characters tangled up in the plot. That's the fun of it.

In What's Up Doc the perfect symbol of disaster-following-the-trail of the lead woman is Barbra Streisand strolling happily and obliviously across the street - causing a 5-car pile up. And she never even looks back. Or is even aware of what catastrophes she causes.

What's Up Doc and Bringing Up Baby have got to be two of the funniest movies ever made.

Madcap screwball comedies. Hollywood seems to have lost its touch for them. Or maybe the audience doesn't care for that kind of lunacy anymore. I don't know, though. The success of "Three's Company" was completely based on that madcap screwball stuff, with John Ritter's pratfalls, and mistaken identities ...

If a screwball comedy is done badly, or - if it's just TRYING to be a screwball comedy - then it is going to be dreadful.

But damn. There's nothing like a good one.

Posted by sheila