The famous flop that went on to be­come, and stay, a cult favorite, Bringing Up Baby didn’t lose tons of money, it just came and went. Hepburn as usual shouldered most of the blame, and it was partly responsible for the “box-office poison” label. In fact one of the glorious things about Hepburn is her willingness to go beyond the boundaries of likability. She never seeks audience complicity with a compromising wink. And here she’s at her craziest and bravest in the poetic perversity of her balletic slapstick with Cary Grant’s paleontologist, and the weird mixture of charm and ruthlessness driv­ing their romantic duet. If the screwball comedies endure because of their way of subverting the sentimental platitudes of conventional love stories, Bringing Up Baby may be the most outrageous of them all, breakneck speed being only one of the tools that Howard Hawks brings to this ode to insanity. Just as George Stevens brings eros into the framing and lighting of Hepburn, Hawks appreciates women who, like his men, do things, ex­hibit bravery, speak their minds.

Another role reversal: unlike her usu­al heroines who are blasé about money, in Bringing Up Baby Hepburn desper­ately wants the stuff and lots of it. She will do anything to get it, and that in­cludes transporting a tiger named Baby from New York to Connecticut, with the deeply reluctant help of a nerdy compan­ion also in search of funding. This time it’s the man’s identity that’s at stake. In the face-off between fusty academic and wrecking-ball socialite, he’s the one get­ting rehabilitated, finding his true self. Under her ruthless ministrations he will evolve through various incarnations – fiancé of a dull workaholic colleague; “gay” crossdresser in a feathery dressing gown; and finally a maybe-romantic companion who, standing atop the bron­tosaurus that Susan will bring crashing down, says: “I just discovered that was the best day I ever had in my whole life.” And (moaning): “I love you I think.”

Molly Haskell