This is one of those films that you must re-visit perhaps once a year, because in spite of its place in Hollywood as a legendary failure (that resulted in Katharine Hepburn being listed as box office poison), it is one of the 10 funniest movies ever made. Hepburn and Cary Grant are an opposite sex version of Laurel and Hardy here, so dumb they're smart, and so over-the-top, you can't get enough of them. Grant is an expert on dinosaurs, and is missing the one important tail bone he needs to complete a 10-year project. That bone will go missing, thanks to George, a spunky pooch (who happens to look like Nick and Nora Charles' dog Asta) who grabs it then gets distracted by playing with a lovable leopard named Baby. If George and Baby weren't enough to drive Grant to wish he was extinct like the dinosaurs, then Hepburn might, yet there is something about this dizzy heiress that makes him remember that he's a man, not a bone chaser.
O.K., I admit that I would be greatly annoyed to be stalked by a character as wacko and interfering as Hepburn, but watching Grant deal with her is a delightfully witty voyage. From the moment she steals his golf ball, dents his car, then tears his tuxedo jacket, you know she's attached to him like glue to a Popsicle stick. And when he accidentally retaliates and rips her dress, that sticky situation leads to even more. They are not quite the only insane ones here. Everybody has some neurotic disorder about them, even the psychiatrist (Fritz Feld) whom Hepburn and Grant encounter in a fancy restaurant and later in the country where Baby has taken up temporary residence on Feld's roof. May Robson is perplexed from the moment she sees Grant wearing a frilly ladies' robe, and Charles Ruggles adds more befuddlement into the mix when he shows up. A dipsomaniac caretaker (Barry Fitzgerald), frustrated sheriff (Walter Catlett) and Grant's jilted fiancée (Tala Birell) are others involved in this mix, which also includes a second leopard whom even Baby might run from if they were to encounter each other in the dark. Director Howard Hawks mixes everything together seamlessly, resulting in a film of sheer perfection.
Why this flopped in its initial release has never really been identified, except perhaps that Hepburn's involvement in a comedy after so many serious dramas seemed like something to skip as a misguided shot in the dark. She really proves her meddle in comedy when she pretends to be a gangster's moll, utilizing an accent that is downright hysterical. But the movie audiences in 1938 would have to wait for its rediscovery later on, and like so many other films, this one has risen above its initial failure to become one of the all-time classics, a pleasure from start to finish. Peter Bogdanovich's "What's Up Doc?" pretty much updated the plot, replacing the two leopards with identical suitcases, yet utilizing the same ensemble types of wackos to make it almost equally as enjoyable and one of the best modern comedy classics.
O.K., I admit that I would be greatly annoyed to be stalked by a character as wacko and interfering as Hepburn, but watching Grant deal with her is a delightfully witty voyage. From the moment she steals his golf ball, dents his car, then tears his tuxedo jacket, you know she's attached to him like glue to a Popsicle stick. And when he accidentally retaliates and rips her dress, that sticky situation leads to even more. They are not quite the only insane ones here. Everybody has some neurotic disorder about them, even the psychiatrist (Fritz Feld) whom Hepburn and Grant encounter in a fancy restaurant and later in the country where Baby has taken up temporary residence on Feld's roof. May Robson is perplexed from the moment she sees Grant wearing a frilly ladies' robe, and Charles Ruggles adds more befuddlement into the mix when he shows up. A dipsomaniac caretaker (Barry Fitzgerald), frustrated sheriff (Walter Catlett) and Grant's jilted fiancée (Tala Birell) are others involved in this mix, which also includes a second leopard whom even Baby might run from if they were to encounter each other in the dark. Director Howard Hawks mixes everything together seamlessly, resulting in a film of sheer perfection.
Why this flopped in its initial release has never really been identified, except perhaps that Hepburn's involvement in a comedy after so many serious dramas seemed like something to skip as a misguided shot in the dark. She really proves her meddle in comedy when she pretends to be a gangster's moll, utilizing an accent that is downright hysterical. But the movie audiences in 1938 would have to wait for its rediscovery later on, and like so many other films, this one has risen above its initial failure to become one of the all-time classics, a pleasure from start to finish. Peter Bogdanovich's "What's Up Doc?" pretty much updated the plot, replacing the two leopards with identical suitcases, yet utilizing the same ensemble types of wackos to make it almost equally as enjoyable and one of the best modern comedy classics.