I love Katherine Hepburn in Bringing up Baby. Her character and Cary Grant's are both very broad and cartoony to serve the plot but they commit to it totally and have a lot of fun.
Bringing Up Baby is a farce more than a comedy and it doesn't bear scrutiny. You just have to roll with the ridiculousness.
I regret to inform you that you are all freaky alien people whose brains are filled with wrongness.
I'm with JZ in general arm-flailage and muttering "but... but... it's Lady freakin' EVE!"
My favourite Grant/Hepburn is actually Holiday, but I wouldn't call that film a screwball comedy. It's too melancholic. Who was it that wrote that great piece about the appeal of Holiday on Salon? It was probably Stephanie Zacharek or Laura Miller. Or that woman whose name I'm memfaulting on who used to write a lot about Buffy. Judith someone?
I remember seeing My Man Godfrey in college (they showed classic films in the union on Wednesday nights--first time I saw Dr. Strangelove and lots of other films, too). Really liked it, and it was fun seeing William Powell in his heyday, instead of just as the doc in Mr. Roberts.
I love My Man Godfrey, but she is SO not good enough for him.
sighs with deep Godfrey love
JZ is crazy about Lew Ayers in
Holiday.
Holy shit, I'm watching TCM and they're showing the trailer for
The Lady Eve
right now. It is, of course, fucking great.
In
The Lady Eve
I love how Fonda seems like he's from an entirely different movie. He just plays it so incredibly straight and gets bounced around to great comic effect.
Who couldn't like it? It's got Barbara Stanwyck in a tiara!
I love My Man Godfrey, but she is SO not good enough for him.
I'm still kind of hot for the bitchy, older brunette sister.
Now is when I admit to the highly unpopular, I don't much like Katherine Hepburn.
I think much of why I don't love TLE or BUB is that the guys don't work in those roles for me (as much as I love both Grant and Fonda in almost anything else).
I think I prefer later Kate Hepburn over her earliest work. Except for Stage Door--she was terrific in that. But her best performance was in Lion in Winter.
Now is when I admit to the highly unpopular, I don't much like Katherine Hepburn.
I like Kate a lot, but I love Barbara Stanwyck, Jean Arthur and Irene Dunne.
Also, I have to once again pimp The Vivacious Lady with Ginger Rogers. Best Slap Fight Ever.