Bringing Up Baby

Bringing Up Baby
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Howard Hawks
Screenplay by	Dudley Nichols Hagar Wilde
Story by	Hagar Wilde
Based on	Bringing Up Baby 1937 short story in Collier's by Hagar Wilde
Produced by	Cliff Reid Howard Hawks
Starring	Katharine Hepburn Cary Grant Charles Ruggles Barry Fitzgerald May Robson Walter Catlett Fritz Feld
Cinematography	Russell Metty
Edited by	George Hively
Music by	Roy Webb (musical director) Jimmy McHugh Dorothy Fields (original writers of I Can't Give You Anything but Love, Baby)
Production company	RKO Radio Pictures
Distributed by	RKO Radio Pictures
Release date	February 16, 1938 (1938-02-16) (Golden Gate Theatre)[1]
Running time	102 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$1.1 million
Box office	$1.1 million

Bringing Up Baby is a 1938 American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks, and starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. It was released by RKO Radio Pictures. The film tells the story of a paleontologist in a number of predicaments involving a scatterbrained heiress and a leopard named Baby. The screenplay was adapted by Dudley Nichols and Hagar Wilde from a short story by Wilde which originally appeared in Collier's Weekly magazine on April 10, 1937.

The script was written specifically for Hepburn, and tailored to her personality. Filming began in September 1937 and wrapped in January 1938, over schedule and over budget. Production was frequently delayed by Hepburn and Grant's uncontrollable laughing fits. Hepburn struggled with her comedic performance and was coached by another cast member, vaudeville veteran Walter Catlett. A tame leopard named Nissa was used during the shooting and played two roles in the film; Nissa's trainer stood off-screen with a whip for all of its scenes.

Bringing Up Baby was a box-office bomb upon its release, although it eventually made a small profit after its re-release in the early 1940s. Shortly after the film's premiere, Hepburn was one of a group of actors labeled as "box office poison" by the Independent Theatre Owners of America. Her career waned until The Philadelphia Story two years later. The film's reputation began to grow during the 1950s when it was shown on television.

Since then, the film has gained acclaim from both critics and audiences for its zany antics and pratfalls, absurd situations and misunderstandings, comic timing, completely screwball cast, series of lunatic and hare-brained misadventures, disasters, light-hearted surprises and romantic comedy.^[2]

In 1990, Bringing Up Baby was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant,"^[3][4] and it has appeared on a number of greatest-films lists, ranking 88th on the American Film Institute's 100 greatest American films of all time list.