Search - L' Impossible Monsieur Bebe on DVD

Content Advisory: Suitable for Children Movie Release: 1938 DVD Release: 01/01/2001 Format: DVD SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Studio: Editions Montparnasse Members Wishing: 0 Genres: Comedy, Romantic Comedy, Screwball Comedy See Also: Bringing Up Baby

Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant star in this inspired comedy about a madcap heiress with a pet leopard who meets an absent-minded paleontologist and unwittingly makes a fiasco of both their lives. David Huxley (Grant) is the stuffy paleontologist who needs to finish an exhibit on dinosaurs and thus land a $1 million grant for his museum. At a golf outing with his potential benefactors, Huxley is spotted by Susan Vance (Hepburn) who decides that she must have the reserved scientist at all costs. She uses her pet leopard, Baby, to trick him into driving to her Connecticut home, where a dog wanders into Huxley's room and steals the vital last bone that he needs to complete his project. The real trouble begins when another leopard escapes from the local zoo and Baby is mistaken for it, leading Huxley and Susan into a series of harebrained and increasingly more insane schemes to save the cat from the authorities. Inevitably, the two end up in the local jail, where things get even more out of hand: Susan pretends to be the gun moll to David's diabolical, supposedly wanted criminal. Naturally, the mismatched pair falls in love through all the lunacy. Director Howard Hawks delivers a funny, fast-paced, and offbeat story, enlivened by animated performances from the two leads, in what has become a definitive screwball comedy. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

Katharine Hepburn - Susan Vance
Cary Grant - David Huxley
Charlie Ruggles - Maj. Horace Applegate
Barry Fitzgerald - Mr. Gogarty
May Robson - Aunt Elizabeth

Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby has been available on DVD in France (as L'Impossible Monsieur Bebe) since 2001, courtesy of Editions Montparnasse, in a handsome boxed edition that comes complete with a booklet with historical notes (in French) and a second disc filled with supplements about Hawks' career and the movie. But first things first -- the movie, provided on disc one in a glowing restoration with splendid sound in 5.1 digital audio, is extremely impressive. The quality of this presentation is better than that of the VHS and laserdisc editions it received in the late '80s and even surpasses television and theatrical showings of the film. The sharpness and clarity are such that various tiny flaws and marks from age in the film elements are evident in the image. This comes up in certain edits within the film, involving frames that couldn't be fully repaired and so are gone, such as in the scene between Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn at 12 minutes into the film. Within the individual frames, however, the movie looks incredible -- so sharp that the dots in Hepburn's robe at 17 minutes in seem to shimmer (and they're not that close together); furthermore, in close-ups within the same scene, every strand in her hair seems discernible, and the picture is so sharp that, in the shot where Grant walks in on the leopard at 25 minutes into the movie, you can see the pane of glass between him and the feline that was supposed to be invisible. The movie can be viewed with or without French subtitles (accessible through the subtitle button on the remote control, rather than the onscreen menu). It has been given a surprisingly paltry ten chapters, but given the movie's almost seamless structure and loopy forward momentum, the best way to divide it properly is anyone's guess.

The second disc includes a 12-minute segment from the PBS series The Men Who Made Movies in which critic Richard Schickel recalls (complete with French subtitles) his 1973 meeting with the then-retired Hawks and his sense of what the man was like in his later life -- evidently Hawks was still hoping to get another picture at the time. Schickel delves into the peculiar arc of Hawks' career and his sheer flexibility, as well as the way in which he was able to use the relative smallness of studios such as RKO or Columbia to his advantage as a filmmaker. Schickel also discusses Hawks' similar stylistic approaches to comedy and action films, and he presents relevant anecdotes about some of Hawks' most famous movies, supported by still frames and, in the case of Bringing Up Baby, clips. The sequence runs 25 minutes and is a beautiful supplement to this film, which was probably Hawks' most beloved movie of the 1930s. There's a five-minute interview segment with Hawks from the same series which captures some of the man's dry wit. Accompanying this material is Todd McCarthy's 1999 portrait of Bringing Up Baby, delving into the backstory of the movie and its evolution and development. (Hawks got involved after he was fired by Goldwyn from Come and Get It and, in need of money, jumped to RKO for Gunga Din, which wasn't ready to shoot). And, to top it off, the original trailer is also included. In one respect, however, the French producers have skimped in a way that an American company would not have; instead of a wall-to-wall commentary track, there are four excerpts on the second disc that are played to commentaries in French by Luc Moullet. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide