MovieChat Forums > Bringing Up Baby (1938) Discussion > 100 minutes of sheer torment.

100 minutes of sheer torment.

posted 10 years ago by Gov_William_J_LePetomane
6 replies | jump to latest

Getting caught up on the movies of the 30s, 40s and 50s is usually very enjoyable. But every now and then there’s a revered classic that I end up having to force myself to watch through to the end, just so I can say I watched it through to the end. Most of that era’s movies hold up fine today, but if THIS film is what was considered funny in 1938, then verily I say I weep for the audiences of 1938. Bringing Up Baby is some of the most painfully and utterly forced situational comedy I’ve ever seen. Susan (Hepburn) is obviously supposed to be just so charming and charismatic, but she only comes off as infuriatingly annoying. Almost from the first moment she opens her mouth, I wanted to clock her with an intercostal clavicle. I don’t think it’s Hepburn’s fault. She’s usually delightful, so it must be the character. To a degree Susan IS charismatic, but so was Jesse Helms.

Cary Grant jumping up and down in a frilly robe going “I just went gay all of a sudden!” was about the only thing that was even vaguely interesting.

3/10

HARUMPH!

[–] ppllkk 10 years ago

Gov_William_J_LePetomane wrote:

but if THIS film is what was considered funny in 1938, then verily I say I weep for the audiences of 1938. Bringing Up Baby is some of the most painfully and utterly forced situational comedy I’ve ever seen.

Initially, it did very well in some areas and not at all well in other areas. The initial release was finally killed by the New York Times reviewer who saw the movie the way that you do.But you really don't need to weep for those of us who think that it is a joy and a very funny film, and that is, as you know, a very large majority.You didn't even like the sexual jokes? That's interesting. Howard Hawks told Peter Bogdanovich that he spent an entire day filming one scene because Grant and Hepburn kept breaking up. He tried to calm them down, he took breaks, he rewrote the scene, but nothing worked. They just kept breaking up. It seems to have taken literally — in the correct sense of the word — the whole day to get the scene.The entire movie is an extended sexual double entendre. Oh well, comedy is notoriously subjective and not everyone appreciates that sort of joke.

[–] ppllkk 10 years ago

Gov_William_J_LePetomane wrote:

Susan (Hepburn) is obviously supposed to be just so charming and charismatic, but she only comes off as infuriatingly annoying.

Now that is one weird opinion. I do not think there's any possibility that anyone connected with the movie thought that Susan was supposed to be charming. I think you do not know what the word "charismatic" means.She was supposed to be infuriatingly annoying — she gets less so as the movie goes on — and that is one of the reasons they call it "screwball" comedy.I think you just do not understand how to take this movie which may help to explain your reaction to it.

[–] Enrique-8 9 years ago

This entire is so FORCED it is almost painful to watch. I just tried again today... OK it was sheer torment!

Enrique Sanchez

[–] louiseculmer 9 years ago

i can understand you not likiing it, it's not to everyone's taste, but baffled that you feel a need to weep for those who do. There are lots of comedies i've seen I don't consider funny, but i feel no desire to weep for those who like them. You take things too hard.

[–] lm362 9 years ago

The problem is you are not think of why she is infuriatingly annoying. She obviously gets things mixed up in her mind and if you know someone like that some situations can be quite funny with them. She also is in love with Cary Grant's character and wants to do anything to get him. Try thinking less about the wrongness of her ways and concentrate on why she is the way she is. That is where the comedy comes from. Also think about what she, in a way, saves him from which is what would be a terrible marriage.

[–] mrsmel-140-231890 9 years ago

I agree with the OP. I love screwball comedy, so it's not that I can't appreciate the genre. Grant is somewhat funny in this, and I know that he can be quite funny, as I've seen him be so in other movies, though his wit was more the dry ironic sophisticated type, at least that's what seems natural to him in what I've seen him do (and he could do slapstick quite well, he was an acrobat before becoming an actor). But Hepburn just isn't funny in this, IMO, she's too annoying to be funny. Carole Lombard was supposed to be quite annoying to the hero in "My Man Godfrey", but as the audience, I got the humor in it too. Hepburn is just plan annoying to me, and it's nothing against her, I like her quite well in other films. It's too heavy-handed or something, it's missing the essential happenstance frothiness of good screwball comedy-without that frothiness and unreality, these people would be nothing but annoying. Also, I don't like the light, I suppose it was supposed to be girlish, voice she assumes for this part. I know she was meant to show her versatility, but this just wasn't her forte. There's nothing wrong with that, no one does everything perfectly. She's quite funny in more adult, realistic, lightly humorous films, such as "The Desk Set". And she's very funny in biting style humor, such as the acid wit in "The Lion In Winter", though of course that's far from being a "comedy".

I can tell you this, NO one on screen of her time, except her, could have gotten away with the lines "The calla lilies are in bloom again, such a strange flower" and "the old, old love we knew of yore" in the play-within-the-movie from "Stage Door", because no one else could have said them with such complete conviction, taking them completely seriously and not cracking up or showing any detachment or objectivity whatsoever, which would have made them mentally raise their eyebrows at such tripe. Even then, she took acting and herself as an actress so very seriously, that she finally convinced us to do so, and came into her own in "The Philadelphia Story". Then, she found her place in the acting universe.

What we're dealing with here... is a complete lack of respect for the law.