The comedy in Bringing Up Baby

Out of all the things to look at that make Bringing Up Baby stand out, I found it rather difficult to pinpoint what it is that makes it different. As I've mentioned before, the dialogue isn't particularly spectacular, and I personally don't find it to be a fast-paced film like Howard Hawks' other comedy His Girl Friday. Even looking at the plot, there's nothing too unique about it, except the absurdity of it all. But then, the comedy in itself and how it's played is perhaps what makes this film a bit different than the rest.

One of the things pointed out while watching the film with the DVD commentary is the presence of physical comedy in the film and how the actors themselves perform it. There are so many falls throughout the film and actually done by the actors. When Cary Grant enters into the restaurant just as Katharine Hepburn sends an olive flying into the air, he trips on falls flat on the floor. Same for Hepburn when she's on the phone and trips over the cord, she falls face down and lands on her elbows. Both end up in "shallow water" and while we don't see the whole incident with Baby chasing the goose and chicken, we do see Grant in the car all covered in feathers, his face none too pleased. This is something that for example, you don't see in Trouble in Paradise, and not really in Twentieth Century either. Preston Sturges would use physical comedy in his films, and in his script for The Good Fairy, there's certainly some of it. And something that's mentioned in the DVD commentary rings true, that Hawks pushed further with this film, he took what he did with his last screwball and amplified it. He really put in the slapstick in this film.

Grant is able to pull off comedy in a way I don't think I've seen other actors do. This isn't to say other actors aren't as funny, it's just that Grant manages to make it look so natural and easy. The faces he makes are funny and they aren't intentional either or come off as forced. He looks absolutely hilarious as the absent-minded professor stuck with a screwball heiress and running around Connecticut after his intercostal clavicle bone and a leopard at the same time. Any time he is trying to get a word in and Hepburn won't let him, Grant turns and opens his mouth, but then turns away patiently, and he'll raise a finger, but then turn away again and shake his head, and somehow he conveys this feeling of frustration at not being heard, but yet he doesn't speak up about it, which makes it hilarious. Of course, when he does lose it is when he's in the frilly robe and he yells and then steps on Hepburn's foot to get her to shut up. But mostly, Grant just has the reactions of a man in utter exasperation. You can't help but laugh. And then, Grant also has a way of making lines funny that aren't funny. The way he delivers them, and this is true of his other films as well, he just does it in a way that evokes a laugh. There's that line mentioned in the commentary after Hepburn and Grant fall in the water and he say something about them being just wet. It's not a funny line, but the ennunciation of the syllables just makes it funny. Grant makes it enjoyable to watch him play the absent-minded professor, an otherwise dull sort of guy.

And finally there's Hepburn. As mentioned before, she has Walter Catlett help her with the comedy, so as to not come off as trying to be funny. Hepburn plays Susan completely straight and you can see it. She's that good. There's no exaggeration whatsoever in her performance. Whereas another actress would play the screwball heiress with just the right amount of exaggeration to indicate this is for laughs, Hepburn plays her seriously. This is her world and things are as the way she sees them. It brings to the ambiguity where you wonder, does she really not realize that the golf ball she played wasn't hers? Does she really not realize that that isn't her car? Is Susan really that vapid? But she's so endearing; our sympathies are with her. She wants a husband and she goes after David. If Hepburn had tried to play her funny then she may have started to exaggerate certain mannerisms and then perhaps it not only wouldn't have been as funny, because it would've been forced, but you wouldn't sympathize with her either. This is most apparent when Grant tells Hepburn that he doesn't want her to help him look for Baby or George and Hepburn starts to cry. The crying isn't really forced. Playing it forced would've made her seem manipulative, which she is, but Susan goes about it in such an innocent way, like a child. The crying comes across as heartbroken, but not dramatic, it's just right, and David falls for it and the continue with their misadventures.

It's very interesting to look at the comedy of Bringing Up Baby, to see the choices that Hawks made when bringing the story to life and to see why it works so well. And one of the things I realized why I enjoy it so much after these viewings is because of the physical comedy, I just don't think I realized how Hawks worked with the script and actors to make it funny. And the even more interesting thing about it is that dialogue is such an important trait of the screwball comedy, but here it isn't as important. There are great lines, but really what makes this film stand out is the physicality of the comedy and the delivery of the performances.