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Bringing Up Baby (The Criterion Collection)
The Movie:
Directed by Howard Haws and released in 1938, Bringing Up Baby is a charming screwball comedy that follows a zoology professor named Doctor David Huxley (screen icon Cary Grant) who cannot contain his enthusiasm for a newly discovered dinosaur bone that will allow him to complete a brontosaurus skeleton project he's been working on for a few years. Life is good for David, who is also excited to be soon tying the knot with his lovely assistant, Alice Swallow (Virginia Walker), an ambitious woman who is just as fascinated by his work as he is.
Soon, David realizes his funding isn't quite where it needs to be and he come to hope that the wealthy Carleton Random will pony up the dough to help him finish. To make this happen, David needs to get on the good side of Alexander Peabody (George Irving), the woman's lawyer. Hoping time and time again to impress Peabody and win the donation, David's exploits seem to be continually foiled by the presence of heiress Susan Vance (the amazing Katharine Hepburn). As he tries, and continually fails, to get her out of the picture so that he can keep his eyes on the prize, she, through a series of comedic events, seems to become more and more involved with his plight. When David learns that she's a close friend of Peabody and then that she's related to Random, he works double time to keep up appearances all while revaluating the things that really matter to him in life aside from his brontosaurus project.
It won't surprise to many viewers to find out where the storyline is headed but it sure is a lot of fun getting there. It's a treat to watch Grant and Hepburn, two legitimate Hollywood legends, play the leads in this picture and you couldn't ask for a better cast. They handle the material well and have a really solid chemistry in each of the many scenes that they share together. He's handsome and charming, the way that Cary Grant often was, and she's beautiful and equally charming, the way that Katharine Hepburn often was. They've both got serious star power here and Hawks does a great job of exploiting that aspect for all that it is worth. The supporting players all do a great job as well, but it's Grant and Hepburn that really steal the show here.
Just as importantly as that, the movie is still very funny these many decades since it was made. A lot of the gags and quips still feel very fresh and remain very effective. The comedic timing that the cast shows hits all the right beats and the script from Dudley Nichols and Hagar Wilde is clever and nicely put together. The editing is strong, it keeps the movie moving with the right rhythm, the score from Roy Webb does a great job of enhancing the comedy, drama and even occasional moments of suspense that the picture contains. Russell Metty's cinematography is spot-on, framing everything pretty much perfectly and doing a great job of not only capturing the facial expressions of the cast members but ensuring that we see all the detail in the sets, props and costumes used throughout the production.
The Video:
Bringing Up Baby arrives on a 50GB Blu-ray disc framed at 1.37.1 fullframe in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition taken from a "new, restored 4K digital transfer." Taking up just under 31GBs of space on the disc, the transfer is really solid. Detail is strong, though occasionally a bit softer in some scenes than others, and contrast generally looks nice and consistent. The picture avoids any blooming or blow outs in the whites. There's no obvious noise reduction or edge enhancement here, the whole thing looks nice and film-like with some occasionally thick grain reminding us that this was shot on film. Compression artifacts are a non-issue and the image is virtually devoid of print damage altogether. All in all, fans should be quite pleased with how this restoration presents the film, the movie looks very good.
The Audio:
The 24-bit LPCM English language Mono audio track sounds great. Dialogue is always clean and clear and easy to understand and the track is balanced properly throughout the duration of the picture. The score sounds quite nice and there are no problems with any hiss or distortion to note. Optional subtitles are provided in English.
The Extras:
There are a few new extras on the disc, starting with a video essay on actor Cary Grant by author Scott Eyman that runs for eighteen-minutes, covering his background, his rise to prominence in Hollywood and some of his more important roles as well as his work in the feature. Up next is a new interview about cinematographer Russell Metty with cinematographer John Bailey that runs for eleven-minutes and goes over, in some nice detail, Metty's life and influence as well as his work on the picture at hand. A new interview with film scholar Craig Barron on special-effects pioneer Linwood Dunn runs for thirteen-minutes and once again gives us some background information on Barron's life and times as well as his career and importance in the era of filmmaking from which the feature emerged. Also exclusive to this new release is some selected-scene commentary about costume designer Howard Greer by costume historian Shelly Foote. She speaks over twenty-two minutes of footage and does a nice job of explaining the importance of the costumes in the picture and notes what makes them so.
We also get a nice selection of archival extras, including the audio commentary recorded with Peter Bogdanovich for the 2005 DVD release. It's a great track where the director talks about his relationship with Howard Hawks, what sets Bringing Up Baby apart from other screwball comedies of the period, the cast and crew, the history of the film and lots more. Very much worth checking out if you haven't heard it before.
Up next is Howard Hawks: A Hell of a Good Life, which is a documentary made by Hans-Christoph Blumenberg in 1977 and which features the director's last filmed interview. This piece runs just over fifty-seven minutes and it does a really nice job of going over Hawk's life and career. An audio interview conducted in 1969 with Grant runs for just over thirty-five minutes and is a nice look back at some of his work, while fifteen-minutes of audio interview excerpts from a 1972 conversation between Hawks and Peter Bogdanovich offers some great first hand info from the late director.
A trailer for the feature rounds out the extras on the disc, which also includes menus and chapter selection options. Included inside the cast along with the disc is a color insert booklet that contains credits for the feature and the Blu-ray release, notes on the presentation and an essay by critic Sheila O'Malley as well as the 1937 short story by Hagar Wilde that Haws based his film on.
Overall:
Criterion's release of Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby is an excellent release for an excellent film, presenting this classic comedy in beautiful shape and with a great selection of extra features. Highly recommended.
Ian lives in NYC with his wife where he writes for DVD Talk, runs Rock! Shock! Pop!. He likes NYC a lot, even if it is expensive and loud.
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