Bringing Up Baby - Reception and Legacy

Reception and Legacy

The film received good advance reviews and RKO was expecting a hit film. Otis Ferguson of The New Republic said that the film was very funny and praised Hawks' direction. In a Variety review "Wear" praised the film, singling out Hawks' pacing and comedy direction, calling Hepburn's performance "one of her most invigorating screen characterizations" and stating that Grant "performs his role to the hilt." Variety's only criticism was that the jail scene was too long. Frank S. Nugent of the New York Times disliked the film and felt that it was unoriginal and full of comedy cliches. He also called Hepburn's performance "breathless, senseless and terribly, terribly fatiguing."

Despite having a reputation of being an enormous flop, it was actually very successful in certain parts of the country. It first premiered on Valentine's Day, February 14, 1938 at the Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco, where it was a hit. It was also a hit in such cities as Los Angeles, Portland, Denver, Cincinnati and Washington D. C. However it was a financial disappointment in the midwest and most other cities in the U.S. To the surprise of RKO, when it premiered in New York on March 3, 1938 at Radio City Music Hall it only made $70,000 and was pulled after only one week to make way for Jezebel starring Bette Davis. On its initial run the film recorded a loss of $365,000 if Hawks' additional fee of $40,000 it added to the film's budget.

On its first run Bringing Up Baby made $715,000 in the U.S. and $394,000 in foreign markets, with a total of $1,109,000. When it was re-issued in 1940 and 1941 it made an additional $95,000 domestically and $55,000 in foreign markets. After its second run the film had made of profit of $163,000. Due to the film's perceived failure, Hawks was released early from his two-film contract with RKO and Gunga Din was eventually directed by George Stevens. Hawks later stated that the film "had a great fault and I learned an awful lot from that. There were no normal people in it. Everyone you met was a screwball and since that time I learned my lesson and don't intend ever again to make everybody crazy." Hawks went on to work with RKO on three films in the next decade. Shortly after the film's release Hepburn was named "box office poison" by a group of US movie theater owners and was released from her RKO contract. However many film critics marveled at her new skill with low comedy, and Life magazine called her "the surprise of the picture." Howard Hughes bought RKO in 1941 and later sold it in 1959. When he sold the company he kept the copyrights to six films, including Bringing Up Baby. Hughes and Hepburn were in a romantic relationship during the making of the film.

Since its release, the popularity of Bringing Up Baby has grown considerably, beginning with it being shown on TV in the 1950s. By the 1960s many film theorists, such as writers at Cahiers du Cinema in France, held the film in high esteem. In 1972 Peter Bogdanovich partially re-made the film as What's Up, Doc?, which contributed to Bringing Up Baby's growing reputation. The film was placed by the American Film Institute on its list of the 100 greatest American films of all time. It was also named the fourteenth funniest American film of all time.

Bringing Up Baby was the second of four films starring Grant and Hepburn, the others being Sylvia Scarlett (1935), Holiday (1938), and The Philadelphia Story (1940), the last three of which belong to a sub-genre of screwball comedy called the comedy of remarriage described by the philosopher Stanley Cavell as Hollywood's crowning achievement. Cavell also said that it was made in the tradition of romantic comedy with roots from ancient Rome to Shakespeare.