Shortly after the film's premiere, Hepburn was one of a group of actors labeled as "box office poison" by the Independent Theatre Owners of America.

Since then, the film has gained acclaim from both critics and audiences for its zany antics and pratfalls, absurd situations and misunderstandings, comic timing, completely screwball cast, series of lunatic and hare-brained misadventures, disasters, light-hearted surprises and romantic comedy.

David and Susan are jailed by a befuddled town policeman, Constable Slocum, for acting strangely at the house of Dr. Fritz Lehman, where they have cornered the circus leopard, thinking it is Baby.

When it is revealed that this is not Baby but the highly irritated circus leopard, David saves Susan, using a chair to shoo the big cat into a cell.

After showing him the missing bone which she found by trailing George for three days, Susan, against his warnings, climbs a tall ladder next to the dinosaur to be closer to him.

David grabs her hand before she falls, lifts her onto the platform, and halfheartedly complains about the loss of his years of work on his Brontosaurus as she talks him into forgiving her.

When RKO was unable to borrow Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy and Franchot Tone from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for the film and the adaptation of Gunga Din was delayed, Hawks began looking for a new project.

In April 1937, he read a short story by Hagar Wilde in Collier's magazine called "Bringing Up Baby" and immediately wanted to make a film from it,[5] remembering that it made him laugh out loud.

[8] Wilde's short story differed significantly from the film: David and Susan are engaged, he is not a scientist and there is no dinosaur, intercostal clavicle or museum.

[9] Wilde and Nichols wrote several drafts together, beginning a romantic relationship and co-authoring the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film Carefree a few months later.

Major Applegate had an assistant and food taster named Ali (which was intended to be played by Mischa Auer), but this character was replaced with Aloysius Gogarty.

As the term gay was not familiar to the general public until the Stonewall riots in 1969,[19] it is questioned whether the word is used by Grant in its original sense (meaning "happy")[20] or is an intentional, joking reference to homosexuality.

[22] The film This Side of Heaven (1934) included a scene in which a fussy, gossipy interior decorator tries to sell a floral fabric pattern to a customer, who knowingly replies, "It strikes me as a bit too gay.

"[23] After briefly considering Hawks's cousin Carole Lombard for the role of Susan Vance, producers chose Katharine Hepburn to play the wealthy New Englander because of her background and similarities to the character.

[33] The terrier George was played by Skippy, known as Asta in The Thin Man film series and co-starring with Grant (as Mr. Smith) in The Awful Truth.

Hepburn wore heavy perfume to keep Nissa calm and was unafraid of the leopard, but Grant was terrified; most scenes of the two interacting are done in close-up with a stand-in.

[33] There were several news reports about Hawks's difficulty filming the live leopard, and the potential danger to highly valuable actors, so some scenes required rear-screen projection,[34] while several others were shot using traveling mattes.

RKO producers expressed concern about the film's delays and expense, coming in 40 days over schedule and $330,000 over budget, and also disliked Grant's glasses and Hepburn's hair.

[28] The film's cost for sets and props was only $5,000 over budget, but all actors (including Nissa and Skippy) were paid approximately double their initial salaries.

"[43] Harrison's Reports called the film "An excellent farce" with "many situations that provoke hearty laughter,"[44] and John Mosher of The New Yorker wrote that both stars "manage to be funny" and that Hepburn had never "seemed so good-natured.

"[45] However, Frank S. Nugent of The New York Times disliked the film, considering it derivative and cliché-ridden, a rehash of dozens of other screwball comedies of the period.

The site's critical consensus reads: "With Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant at their effervescent best, Bringing Up Baby is a seamlessly assembled comedy with enduring appeal.

The film premiered on February 16, 1938, at the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco (where it was a hit), and was also successful in Los Angeles, Portland, Denver, Cincinnati and Washington, D.C.

[36] Due to its perceived failure, Hawks was released early from his two-film contract with RKO[36] and Gunga Din was eventually directed by George Stevens.

[54] Long before Bringing Up Baby's release, Hepburn had been branded "box office poison" by Harry Brandt (president of the Independent Theatre Owners of America) and thus was allowed to buy out her RKO contract for $22,000.

"[63] Academics Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann write, "The bone and leopard are not only real, but they also represent elements missing from David's urban life as resident museum paleontologist and Alice's fiancé: sex and children.

Susan forces David out of his chrysalis, and he emerges into the limitless night air, where a man can breathe, where a woman not only loves him but returns his bone to him, at last.

"[62] In addition to its playing with gender roles, Murray and Heumann write that Bringing Up Baby contains themes of exploitation, and the impact of colonialism and the removing of animals from their natural habitats: Focusing on the unlikely pairing of zany heiress Susan and befuddled paleontologist David, Bringing Up Baby broaches multiple ecocritical questions: Does a natural history museum and its paleontologist David deserve a $1 million donation from Susan's Aunt Elizabeth (May Robson)?

[66] Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It have been cited in particular as influences on the film and the screwball comedy in general, with their "haughty, self-sufficient men, strong women and fierce combat of words and wit.

[34] The French film Une Femme ou Deux (English: One Woman or Two; 1985), starring Gérard Depardieu, Sigourney Weaver, and Dr. Ruth Westheimer, is a rework of Bringing Up Baby.