Bringing Up Baby

About ten years ago someone on the RKO lot got a kittenish leopard as a gift. Leopards must have been big box office at the time because no one could wait until they had made a funny-type picture with this jovial cat and Katherine Hepburn. The result has recently been exhumed under the eyebrow-raising title of "Bringing Up Baby"--"Baby" being this sweet tempered kitty. It seemed a lot funnier at the age of twelve.

The revival produces few of the well-remembered howls and wonderful aching bellylaughs. Never anything more than sheer slapstick with all the attendent pratfalls, squashed toppers, and skinned knees, "Bringing Up Baby" lacks the necessary speed of action and the vital, high caliber gags to carry it over the inevitable slow spots. It bogs and badly after starting off at a tremendous clip. The middle reels, where any normally intelligent gagman would be clearing the decks for a final smashing boffola, are gummed up by a miserably dull jail routine that talks the audience straight into dreamland. And they sleep right on through to the bitter end. Cary Grant stars opposite Hepburn and is charming and funny as always. Katherine Hepburn has sinus trouble.

"Mary of Scotland," another Hepburn revival, shares the bill. Except for a superb scene of the murder of her faithful servant, played nicely by John Carradine, this historical gumbo is leaden and deadly.