Bringing Up Baby (1938)

 Howard Hawk's "Bringing Up Baby"


I feel as though Howard Hawk's 1938 screwball comedy "Bringing Up Baby" is definitely a great 'comfort' film to have around to house. I found myself not having any existential reckonings or thematic revelations to say the least. However, the film does exactly what it was intended to do - make you laugh. For me, a found a lot of modern rom-coms borrow for the genre of 1930s screwball comedy and it appears that "Bringing Up Baby" is the holy grail. 

What catches my attention most in this film is the writing. Written by Dudley Nichols and Hagar Wilde, "Bringing Up Baby" is a masterclass in situational comedy. As a viewer, the film started to become more and more absurd as the characters travel farther and farther into the story. It even becomes apparently how insignificant plot occurrences manage to pop back up and make trouble for the characters later in the film. This seems to take the film into a realm of ir-reality, like a theater production. It becomes clear that you're watching something explicitly meant to entertain you, which it succeeds at. 

"Bringing Up Baby" is not something I would recommend to a film lover for an 'artistic' experience. However, it has laughs all around and even more so, it can be admired for its comedic story structure at the very least. Like I said, it is a great 'comfort' film. 




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