I was able to find a copy of the Bringing Up Baby screenplay and just read it recently. The differences are enough to show what ended up making the film a classic. Like most scripts from the day, it is long with over 200 pages, and it actually has more scenes that never made it to the screen. But a bigger difference is how some of the scenes evolved into what did end up in the film.
Perhaps the biggest difference I found is how much was shown in the script, whereas in the film these things had been said. The scene in which Susan crashes into a truck filled with birds and Baby has a feeding is expanded. We never see Baby in the pond after the geese and ducks, but in the script we see the fiasco afterward for a short while with Susan going after Baby, while the driver of the truck insults Susan and David.
One scene not in the film that I did find funny is when Susan is captured by the psychiatrist at his home. In the film we see him take her and then the police come for her and catch David nearby peeping in and then the next scene is at the jail cell. In the script, the psychiatrist has an interrogation scene with Susan. He’s trying to get her to reason, to see there is no Baby and she’s after a man. He tries word association and every name is either David or George or Baby and then she ends up with intercostal clavicle only to confound the psychiatrist. It’s one scene that made me laugh to read it and I wonder why it was cut out. Of course, on the page, the psychiatrist is much more aggressive than he appears onscreen. Whereas onscreen he seems absentminded, in the script he just assumes the worst and wants to fight everyone. He wasn’t as funny but rather more annoying. What ends up in the film is just right.
The script also has Baby as a panther instead of leopard. Only in a few pages is there mention of a leopard and I assume it’s because those pages were added as changes to the shooting script. Baby is still from Brazil and he’s got a doppelgänger from the circus running around Connecticut as well. I’m not sure why the change here, but I assume it has something to do with availability. Curiously though, the commentary on the DVD mention that Howard Hawks said he read a story from Hagar Wilde about a girl with a leopard, so I’m not sure what it really was in the end.
Some of the scenes that did end up in the film were either added or changed, not dramatically, but enough to get the right laughs. An observation in the DVD commentary was that once the script was done, Dudley Nichols probably didn’t have much to do with the script afterward and that Hawks took time to rehearse with the actors. From this I assume that much was either revised or improvised while on set. This is true from the first scene in which Alice and David talk about their impending marriage. In the script Alice talks with their colleague about it, and it’s all right, but it’s much funnier when Alice talks directly to David and tells him their marriage will be free of domestic entanglements. You then get to see David’s reaction whereas with the script version you don’t get to see that perhaps he wants more.
A scene different in the script is the arrival of Aunt Elizabeth. In the script, David isn’t as angrily frustrated but rather trying to explain just so he could go. So there’s no “I went gay all of a sudden” jump or anything that follows. There’s no George chasing after him into the room and David trying to get him out. When the intercostal clavicle disappears and David finds out, there’s no calling out for George around the house with Susan echoing David’s cries. And there are many more scenes, but overall you get a sense that the shooting script is really a working script for what ended up onscreen.
While the script for Bringing Up Baby is a long read, it’s still funny to read. I think mostly because in my mind I have the images of the actors and their performances that helped me envision the hilarity of the situation. It’s a strong script with a hilarious premise, and while it isn't completely what ends up onscreen, it's still enjoyable and definitely worth a read to see the differences between what does and doesn't end up in the final cut.
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