Trivia and Quotes
Quotes
 Mrs. Random: What are you doing?
David Huxley: [exasperated and wearing Susan`s negligee] I`m standing in the middle of 42nd Street waiting for a bus!
David Huxley: [Susan is collecting pebbles] Susan, what are you doing?
Susan Vance: Pebbles.
David Huxley: Pebbles? What for?
Susan Vance: Well, I`ve heard that if you throw pebbles up against a window, the people think it`s hail and then they come and close the windows.
David Huxley: I, I, I - Oh!
[Susan throws the pebbles and they loudly crash against Peabody`s window]
David Huxley: Oh, I know we ought to go now, but somehow I can`t move.
David Huxley: But Susan, you can`t climb in a man`s bedroom window!
Susan Vance: I know, it`s on the second floor!
Mrs. Random: [Mrs. Random thinks that David is crazy]
Mrs. Random: What are you doing?
Susan Vance: Hunting for George.
Mrs. Random: But why?
Susan Vance: [In a rush] David wants him, David loves him, David thinks he`s such a nice dog.
Mrs. Random: Susan, he`s a perfect little fiend and you know it!
Susan Vance: But David doesn`t.
Mr. Gogarty: [Gogarty, David, and Susan are in jail] Miss Susan! How`d you get here?
David Huxley: Influence.
Susan Vance: Don`t worry, Gogarty, I`ll get you out.
David Huxley: Oh, sure. Look, she got me out.
Susan Vance: [Susan has torn the back of her dress] Well, get behind me.
David Huxley: I am behind you.
Susan Vance: Well, get closer.
David Huxley: I can`t *get* any closer!
Susan Vance: Now, certainly you can`t think I did that intentionally!
David Huxley: Well, if I could think, I`d have run when I saw you!
Susan Vance: Now that`s all perfectly clear, isn`t it?
Dr. Fritz Lehman: No, it isn`t!
David Huxley: My dear sir, it never will be clear, not as long as she`s explaining it!
David Huxley: So if you don`t mind, Susan, I`ll see Mr. Peabody alone, and unarmed.
Susan Vance: Without me?
David Huxley: Yes, without you, and *definitely* without you.
Susan Vance: You`re angry, aren`t you?
David Huxley: Yes, I am!
Susan Vance: Mm-hmm. The love impulse in men frequently reveals itself in terms of conflict.
Susan Vance: [to David] You know why you`re following me? You`re a fixation.
Dr. Fritz Lehman: The love impulse in man frequently reveals itself in terms of conflict.
Dr. Fritz Lehman: Well, you see, the love impulse in men frequently reveals itself in terms of conflict.
Susan Vance: [Excitedly] The love impulse!
Dr. Fritz Lehman: Without my knowing more about it, my rough guess would be, he has a fixation on you, a fixaation that...
Susan Vance: No wait, I can`t remember any more than that!
Susan Vance: What would you say about a man who follows a girl around...
Dr. Fritz Lehman: Follows her around...
Susan Vance: ...And then when she talks to him, he fights with her?
Dr. Fritz Lehman: Fights with her... is this young man your fiance?
David Huxley: [David tripped and sat on his hat] I might have known it was you. I had a feeling just as I hit the floor.
Susan Vance: That was your hat.
David Huxley: [Pointing to a mark on a golf ball] You see, it`s a circle.
Susan Vance: Well, of course, do you think it would roll if it were square?
David Huxley: [Dadid is trying to prove to Susan that she`s playing his ball]
David Huxley: You see, a PGA has two lines and Cro-Flight has a circle.
Susan Vance: Mm-hm. I`m not superstitious about things like that.
Dr. Alexander Peabody: Dr. Huxley, when I play golf, I only talk golf - and then only between shots.
Alice Swallow: Now once and all, David, must come between you and your work. Our marriage must contain no domestic entanglements of any kind.
David Huxley: [Stammering nervously] You mean... you mean...
Alice Swallow: [Firmly] I mean of any kind, David.
[Susan is pretending to be a mobster]
David Huxley: Constable, she`s making all this up from motion pictures she`s seen!
Susan Vance: Oh, I suppose I saw you with that ragged old skirt in the motion pictures, did I?
Constable Slocum: Oh, another woman, eh?
Susan Vance: Sure, I wouldn`t be squealing on him if he didn`t give me the run-around with that other twist.
Constable Slocum: Oh, so he`s a lady killer.
Susan Vance: A lady killer! He`s a regular Don Swan. Loves the ladies, don`t ya, honey? He pops them off, one, two, three.
[Pretends to open a cork and toss it away]
Susan Vance: He`s a wolf.
David Huxley: [Claps his head] Oh, so now I`m a wolf!
[Collapses on a cot]
Susan Vance: Oh, I`m caught on something - David, help me, will you?
David Huxley: Oh, no. That`s poison ivy.
Susan Vance: I bet you wouldn`t treat Miss Swallow this way.
David Huxley: I bet Miss Swallow knows poison ivy when she sees it.
Susan Vance: Yes, I bet poison ivy runs when it sees her.
Mrs. Random: Who is this David?
Susan Vance: Oh, he`s a friend of Mark.
Mrs. Random: Is that all you know about him?
Susan Vance: No, I know I want to marry him. He doesn`t know it but I am.
Mrs. Random: Now see here, if you are going to marry him on my money you are very much mistaken. I don`t want another lunatic in the family I have lunatic enough all ready. When you going to marry him? What`s his name?
Susan Vance: It`s uh Bone
Mrs. Random: Bones
Susan Vance: One Bone
Mrs. Random: I don`t care if it`s one bone or two bones it`s a ridiculous name.
Mrs. Random: What does he do?
Susan Vance: He hunts
Mrs. Random: Hunts. Hunts what?
Susan Vance: Animals I should think.
David Huxley: A million dollars! Say, that`s pretty white of Mr. Peabody, isn`t it.
Susan Vance: You`ve just had a bad day, that`s all.
David Huxley: That`s a masterpiece of understatement.
Susan Vance: I won`t leave you, David! I love you!
David Huxley: What?
Susan Vance: [watching George the dog dig up what they think is David`s dinosaur bone] Oh, look, David, a boot.
David Huxley: [angrily] A boot.
[picks it up and makes like he`s going to swing with it]
Susan Vance: Don`t hit George, David.
David Huxley: I wasn`t going to hit *George*!
David Huxley: Susan, is there any way to cross this stream?
Susan Vance: Oh, surely it`s shallow. We can wade across.
[they both walk into the stream, then fall in after the floor drops off]
David Huxley: Oh, Susan...
Susan Vance: The riverbeds change!
[repeated line]
David Huxley: I`ll be with you in a minute, Mr. Peabody!
[Susan is stealing David`s car from the golf course]
Susan Vance: Now, don`t lose your temper.
David Huxley: My dear young lady, I`m not losing my temper. I`m merely trying to play some golf!
Susan Vance: You choose the funniest places; this is a parking lot.
[last lines]
Susan Vance: Oh, David, can you ever forgive me?
David Huxley: I... I... I...
Susan Vance: You can! And you still love me.
David Huxley: Susan, that... that...
Susan Vance: You do. Oh, David.
David Huxley: Oh, dear. Oh, my.
[first lines]
Prof. LaTouche: Morning, Miss Alice. My watch is...
Alice Swallow: Shh. Dr. Huxley is thinking.
[reading letter about new leopard]
Susan Vance: "He`s three years old, gentle as a kitten, and likes dogs." I wonder whether Mark means that he eats dogs or is fond of them?
David Huxley: You don`t understand: this is *my* car!
Susan Vance: Your golf ball, your running board, your car? Is there anything in the world that doesn`t belong to you?
David Huxley: Yes, thank heavens, YOU!
[David and Susan have just discovered that Baby is missing]
David Huxley: Now don`t lose your head, Susan.
Susan Vance: My what?
David Huxley: Don`t lose your head!
Susan Vance: I`ve got my head, I`ve lost my leopard!
[Limping after losing a heel from one shoe]
Susan Vance: I was born on the side of a hill.
[David discovers the leopard in Susan`s bathroom]
David Huxley: Susan, you have to get out of this apartment!
Susan Vance: I can`t, I have a lease.
Alice Swallow: Oh David, what have you done?
David Huxley: Just name anything, and I`ve done it.
David Huxley: When a man is wrestling a leopard in the middle of a pond, he`s in no position to run.
Mrs. Random: Well who are you?
David Huxley: I don`t know. I`m not quite myself today.
Mrs. Random: Well, you look perfectly idiotic in those clothes.
David Huxley: These aren`t my clothes.
Mrs. Random: Well, where are your clothes?
David Huxley: I`ve lost my clothes!
Mrs. Random: But why are you wearing *these* clothes?
David Huxley: Because I just went gay all of a sudden!
Mrs. Random: Now see here young man, stop this nonsense. What are you doing?
David Huxley: I`m sitting in the middle of 42nd Street waiting for a bus.
David Huxley: How can all these things happen to just one person?
[In jail]
Susan Vance: Anyway, David, when they find out who we are they`ll let us out.
David Huxley: When they find out who *you* are they`ll pad the cell.
Susan Vance: Well, don`t you worry, David, because if there`s anything that I can do to help you, just let me know and I`ll do it.
David Huxley: Well, er - don`t do it until I let you know.
Susan Vance: You mean you want *me* to go home?
David Huxley: Yes.
Susan Vance: You mean you don`t want me to help you any more?
David Huxley: No.
Susan Vance: After all the fun we`ve had?
David Huxley: Yes.
Susan Vance: And after all the things I`ve done for you?
David Huxley: That`s what I mean.
David Huxley: Now it isn`t that I don`t like you, Susan, because, after all, in moments of quiet, I`m strangely drawn toward you, but - well, there haven`t been any quiet moments.
Susan Vance: There *is* a leopard on your roof and it`s my leopard and I have to get it and to get it I have to sing.
Trivia
Cary Grant did not use a stunt double for the film, doing all his own pratfalls and even doing acrobatics (pulling the other person up with one arm) with the stunt-person doubling for Katharine Hepburn, in the closing scene of the film where the dinosaur skeleton collapses.
Beyond Walter Catlett, allegedly Harold Lloyd was brought into assist Katharine Hepburn with her comedic acting.
The script contains an expression that was very common in the USA up until about the 1950s that by today`s standards is absolutely unbelievable and (thankfully) would never be used today. In the first scene, when Alice tells Cary Grant`s character that "Mr. Peabody may possibly donate a million dollars to the museum", he responds "A million dollars? Say, that`s pretty WHITE of Mr. Peabody, isn`t it?"
The impressive optical effects are discussed in detail in "Hollywood the Golden Years: The RKO Story" (1987). There is a very informative interview with Linwood G. Dunn who worked (uncredited) on the visual effects for this film. He explains the traveling split screens and points out some visual effects goofs that "got by". Included is surviving footage of the stand-ins for Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn`s in a camera test of the two driving with the leopard in the back.
Asta (real name: Skippy), the terrier who played George, also played Asta in The Thin Man (1934) and Mr. Smith in The Awful Truth (1937).
Screenwriters Dudley Nichols and Hagar Wilde fell in love as they were writing the screenplay.
In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #88 Greatest Movie of All Time.
The scenes which involved Baby roaming around freely, notably in Susan`s apartment, had to be done in a cage, with the camera and sound picked up through holes in the fencing.
In the original short story, Baby was a panther.
Katharine Hepburn had one very close call with the leopard. She was wearing a skirt that was lined with little metal pieces to make the skirt swing prettily. When Hepburn turned around abruptly, the leopard made a lunge for her back. Only the intervention of the trainer`s whip saved Hepburn. The leopard was not allowed to roam around freely after that, and Hepburn was more careful around it from then on.
Cary Grant was not fond of the leopard that was used in the film. Once, to torture him, Katharine Hepburn put a stuffed leopard through a vent in the top of his dressing room. "He was out of there like lightning," wrote Hepburn in her autobiography Me: Stories of My Life.
Katharine Hepburn was having a difficult time finding her comedic timing -- Hawks said that she was "trying too hard to be funny" and kept laughing out loud. Luckily, Walter Catlett, who played Constable Slocum, was a veteran comic. Hawks wanted him to give Hepburn some tips, but he refused unless Hepburn asked him. So Hawks got Hepburn to ask Catlett for advice. Hepburn was so grateful that she asked Hawks to make Catlett`s part larger so that he could be around if she needed more help.
The scene in which Susan`s dress is ripped was inspired by something that happened to Cary Grant. He was at the Roxy Theater one night and his pants zipper was down when it caught on the back of a woman`s dress. Grant impulsively followed her. When he told this story to Howard Hawks, Hawks loved it and put it into the film.
Premiere voted this movie as one of "The 50 Greatest Comedies Of All Time" in 2006.
This film employed a great deal of split screen and optical tricks, such as rear screen projection, so that having the big cat in close proximity to the actors (especially Cary Grant who was more worried about acting with the cat than Katharine Hepburn) could be kept to a minimum. (Hepburn is sometimes shown petting and handling Baby. The leopard`s trainer praised Hepburn, stating that Kate was fearless and could become an animal trainer if she so desired.) Most of the split screens had a lot of movement in them, which meant the dividing line had to be moved around as well. Even the scenes of Susan dragging the mean Leopard on a leash are split screened. You can see that the rope does not line up. A puppet Leopard was also used in some shots. It`s most clearly seen in the shot after Susan gets the Leopard dragged into the jail. The reaction shot immediately afterwards, shows David and Mrs. Random with "Baby" the Leopard on the table. The Leopard is a puppet.
Katharine Hepburn was generally fearless around the young leopard `Nissa (II)` who played "Baby" and even enjoyed petting it. Cary Grant was less fond of the big cat and a double was used in the scenes where his character and the leopard had to make contact.
The final shooting script of the film comes in at 202 pages, which would equal a running time of 3 hours 22 minutes. Whether this amount of footage accounted for the rough assembly cut of the film isn`t known.
There is no musical score for the film, with the exception of the opening and end titles.
Howard Hawks said that he failed at making a good comedy here because of the characters were too "madcap", with no straight men/women to ground it. This comment may have resulted from his disappointment at the film`s commercial failure at the time of its release, although many now consider it Hawks` best film.
Was voted the 24th Greatest Film of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
Katharine Hepburn had never done any comedy before and had to be trained in gags and timing by Howard Hawks and several veteran vaudevillians he employed solely to train Hepburn. Cary Grant came to the film with his sense of comic timing already impeccably in place.
David makes reference to the notorious characters "Mickey the Mouse" and "Donald the Duck". RKO was Walt Disney`s distributor at the time.
Though Katharine Hepburn never received royalties as an actress in the film, because she was a part investor, the film did provide a financial return for her (and still does for her estate).
Howard Hawks modeled Cary Grant`s character, David, on silent film comedian Harold Lloyd, even having Grant wear glasses like the comedian.
It has been suggested that co-screenwriter Dudley Nichols based the madcap romance on Katharine Hepburn`s affair with director John Ford at the time. However, other sources state that Hepburn and Ford were never romantically involved, explaining that although they had been on Ford`s yacht together, his wife had been there with them.
This movie fared so badly at the box office that Howard Hawks was fired from his next production at RKO and Katharine Hepburn bought out her contract to avoid being cast in the film Mother Carey`s Chickens (1938). Coincidentally, Hepburn was labeled "box office poison" on the same day her contract was dissolved.
Susan pretends that she and David (Cary Grant) are gangsters. The underworld nickname she gives police for David is "Jerry the Nipper", a nickname that Jerry (Grant) had in The Awful Truth (1937). David protests to the police, "Officer, she`s making it up from motion pictures she`s seen!"
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Katharine Hepburn
(as Susan Vance)
with Cary Grant
(as Dr. David Huxley)
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