There’s a criticism often thrown at the AFI list that there are too many older movies on it. Some believe that a release year beginning with 193 or 194 will yield a much higher chance of a movie making it than one beginning with a 200.
And I agree there’s some truth to the fact that a lot of movies that do make it are from those years. So I guess the natural question is this: are they deserved? Or do they get their placement just because we’ve been able to sit with them for a long time?
As this movie can definitively be placed in the category of “screwball comedy,” can we say that this is for sure more deserving to be on the list than a more modern equivalent, something like The Hangover?
Well, I’ll investigate that, as we look at 1938’s Bringing Up Baby, written by Dudley Nichols and Hagar Wilde, and directed by Howard Hawks.
As I always strive to look for the inner message of each movie, the genre of screwball comedy seems like it could get away without having a central message at all.
I believe Bringing Up Baby does, though. It’s a simple message, but it’s one that’s represented all throughout the film: love is chaotic.
When we’re getting real, like with The Philadelphia Story, this is most definitely a romcom. And here we have David, with Cary Grant donning his no-nonsense character, and Katharine Hepburn donning her all-nonsense character.
He is a museum curator, maybe one of the most serious types of jobs possible, looking for the last piece of his dinosaur skeleton. And then she comes in, putting him in chaotic situation after chaotic situation. But the truth is that he likes it.
Baby herself is the embodiment of where love meets chaos, coming in with the sweetest name possible but also being a leopard, and she seems to be Susan’s spirit animal here. Baby and Susan are responsible for so much of the chaos, but they’re also responsible for changing David.
At the end, when he finally gets the last bone to that dinosaur skeleton, the whole thing falls apart. But it’s ok because he finally has the one thing better than a dinosaur skeleton (if there is, in fact, anything better than a dinosaur skeleton): love.
Like something like The Hangover, the humor in the movie hits hard.
It goes all in, similar to how the Marx Brothers’ movies would go all in to a vaudeville-style level, and that makes it all the more charming.
One of the best examples is the scene where Susan rips her dress and David has to cover it up. It’s such a simple scene, but it’s played so well, with Grant and Hepburn so perfectly hitting that straight man/foil dynamic that it works to charm us.
This level of sincerity, yes, sincerity to the ridiculous, is something that makes a screwball comedy work so well.
So does it belong on the list? For sure. I mean, it’s charming as hell. These movies don’t all have to be stuffy and serious. The great screwballs belong on there too.
And what about one like The Hangover? Is there room for one that has a giant tiger that belongs to Mike Tyson, as well as one with a giant leopard that belongs to Katharine Hepburn?
I don’t see why not. Maybe unlike the more stuffy sorts of movies, though, comedies are a slower burn. We can’t point to their importance until they’ve had years and years to make us laugh.
And as more and more time passes, and Zach Galifianakis becomes as old-sounding as Cary Grant, it will be easier to do.