BRINGING UP BABY (1938) or "Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant Go Leopard-Hunting in Connecticut"

Friends often ask me which Katharine Hepburn film is my all-time favorite. I usually hem and haw and feed them a line about how there is a Hepburn film for every occasion. Sometimes I say that the one I saw last is my favorite. Other times I'll list a top five and watch as their eyes glaze over. Basically, when people ask me about my favorite Katharine Hepburn film, I lie.

Because I do in fact have an ultimate favorite Katharine Hepburn film. My favorite Katharine Hepburn film of all time and in all universes is... Howard Hawks's BRINGING UP BABY (1938). Please, don't judge me.

This week marks the 75th anniversary of BRINGING UP BABY. It's a movie I can watch a million times and still pee myself laughing. I could recite every single line in every scene, but I still demand absolute silence, waiting with baited breath for each familiar punch line. This is the film I force on all my newby-classic-movie-fan-friends. All right, to be perfectly honest, I did force this movie on practically everybody in my college dorm. If I missed you, you're gonna have to come over this weekend so we can remedy that.

Lauren Bacall: TCM's Star of the Month for September

Every Wednesday night this September, Turner Classic Movies will be airing a series of Lauren Bacall movies, documentaries, and interviews. For more information and scheduling details, visit the TCM webpage.

Background and Education
Lauren "Betty" Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske in New York City in 1924. Her parents divorced when she was five and she would remain very close to her mother throughout her career. Bacall began dancing as a child but became interested in acting and modelling as a teenager. After graduating high school , she studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and worked as a theatre usher and model.

Film Career
Bacall was first noticed by the wife of directer Howard Hawks, Nancy "Slim" Hawks, on the cover of "Harper's Bazaar." Hawks cast the 19-year-old Bacall for a part in TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT (1944), a film loosely based on the Hemingway novel and starring Humphrey Bogart. In 1953, Bacall made her first comedy, HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE, co-starring Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable. Bacall's career spans several decades and includes performances in film, and on stage, television, and radio. She co-starred with a bevvy of stars in Agagtha Chrstie's MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (1974), and a couple years later she appeared with John Wayne in his final picture,  THE SHOOTIST (1976).

Gary Cooper: BALL OF FIRE (1941)

This post is written in conjunction with the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon hosted by Sittin' on a Backyard Fence and ScribeHard on Film. A full day of Gary Cooper films will air on TCM on August 26. BALL OF FIRE will be showing at 8:00 pm EST.

During college, my friend Cookie and I bonded over Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck's romance in Howard Hawks' BALL OF FIRE (1941). Of course "Cookie" isn't her real name - we picked it up from Katharine Hepburn in SUMMERTIME (1955). Anyway, BALL OF FIRE was by far our favorite classic film.

Professor Bertram Potts (Cooper) and his seven co-professors are shut up every day working on completing an encyclopedia when their hum-drum lives are overturned by the arrival of Sugarpuss O'Shea (Stanwyck). Potts meets O'Shea in a nightclub where he was doing some research for his article about slang. When her crooked boyfriend runs into some trouble with the fuzz, his compatriots convince Sugarpuss to go into hiding with the bumbling professors, where she causes incredible upheaval, teaching them the cha-cha and generally interfering with their work. Of course, Sugarpuss and Potts sort of unwillingly fall for each other and that causes all manner of trouble with her boyfriend's mob of gangsters. Not to worry - if you didn't know it already, professors are actually superheroes and they can sort out any problem using wit, brain, and a little bit of adorableness.

POLL: What is your favorite 1930s Katharine Hepburn movie?

1.) HOLIDAY (George Cukor, 1938)

Although Johnny (Cary Grant) is crazy about his fiancee Julia, Julia doesn't seem crazy about Johnny's plans for their future. Her sister Linda (Hepburn), on the other hand, feels more than sympathy for the young energetic dreamer engaged to her beloved sister.

POLL: Who's your favorite director of Hepburn movies?