Sunday Bookends: Already in my old lady phase and so is my 10-year-old daughter

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 16 Comments




It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

This week I’m joining up with Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, Deb at Readerbuzz, and Kathyrn at The Book Date.

What’s Been Occurring

I am officially an old lady. I was telling my husband how much I enjoy prunes and a few minutes later I gasped and said, “Oh! I have a Murder She Wrote episode to finish! I’m so excited!”

My husband then reminded me I should brew a cup of tea before I got comfortable under my blanket on the couch. All I need is my slippers and a few more cats and my Old Lady Kit is complete.

The best thing is that my 10-year-old daughter, Little Miss, is watching with me, curled up under her own blanket with the dog curled next to her, saying things like, “There’s something wrong with the ginger here. Look at her eyes.” or “yeah, you could be friends under different circumstances because you literally killed a man…”  and “Bro really needs some better pants.”

She’s starting her kit early.

Then she said, “Honestly, I would have liked to have had that lady as my grandma on my dad’s side.” (Since she never knew his mom for a variety of not-so-fun reasons.)

When I told her after the second episode that we could watch something else she said, “No! More!”

So we launched into our third episode.

Earlier this week Little Miss finished the art class we’ve been attending that was sponsored by the county library. Friday night The Husband took her to an art reception for her work and I stayed home with a sinus headache or neck thing…not sure which. It was so fun to see her so excited about her work, which the teacher had them name and then set a price on, if they wanted to.

I thought it was very interesting to see which drawing she decided to list as “not for sale” and which one she said she would sell for $20. Nothing would change her mind either.

What I/we’ve been Reading

The Christmas Gathering – a book full of three novellas by Shelley Shepard Gray, Lenora Worth, Rachel J. Good (because I needed something happy and light to read)

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Christy by Catherine Marshall (this is my slow and easy read)

The Secret of the Wooden Lady by Carolyn Keene



The Maestro’s Missing Melody by Amy Walsh, which I reviewed here.



The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashi

Little Men by Louisa Mae Alcott

Little Miss and I finished The Four Story Mistake and started And Then There Were Five in The Melendy Children series by Elizabeth Enright.

Little Miss is also reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets some nights.

The Husband is reading The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood because I told him to. Ha! Okay, because he really wanted to.

The Boy is reading The Hound of the Baskervilles.

What We watched/are Watching

Above I mentioned what an old lady I have become and I really have because last night I found a new-to-me series of Mary Berry on Amazon Prime and just about giggled with delight. Little Miss was very excited too. We absolutely love Mary Berry. The fact they have several specials or series with her on Amazon now that I didn’t see before has me very excited. One thing I love about her shows is that they don’t only show viewers how to cook but also provide some background about the dish they are cooking or some education about cultures.

The episode we watched last night was about an Indian wedding. It was extremely interesting.

Tonight we will be watching Chocolat, together via a watch party and YOU are invited. We will be pressing play together on the movie and chatting in our Discord server, which you can join here: https://discord.gg/TpWNxJ4Z

I really hope you will join us! If not, it will just be Erin and I chatting with each other and that’s not all bad either. Haha!


What I’m Writing

I finished the rough draft of Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree this past week and now I am in the rewriting and editing stage. It will be released in 2025.

On the blog this past week I shared:

What I’m Listening To

I am listening to The Hound of the Baskervilles some and reading it other times.

Recent Blog Posts I Enjoyed

|| A Visit to Lincoln Home by Amy’s Creative Pursuits ||

|| Third Days Tripping Our Way by Mama’s Empty Nest ||

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Book review/recommendation: The Maestro’s Missing Melody

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

The first thing to note about The Maestro’s Missing Melody by Amy Walsh is that it can be read alone, even though it is part of a series.

The second thing to note is that this is a very well-written sweet romance that had me captivated from the beginning to the end. Also, I think I might be in love with The Maestro. Not really, of course, but I mean bookishly in love. The way The Maestro attempts to fight love when it is calling to him is very enthralling, even for readers, like me, who don’t always read romances.

The Maestro’s Missing Melody isn’t a over dramatic romance, but is instead a series of gentle steps toward healing for both main characters. The use of musical terms and musical metaphors are two of many aspects that make this book so rich and authentic.

McKay Moonlight has had her share of heartaches – the main one being abandoned by drug-addicted parents. Now she is in Scotland after being given a chance to study under the famous Scottish fiddler Huntley Milne, who she refers to as The Maestro because – to her – he is the fiddling maestro. She’s been listening to his fiddle music for years with her grandparents, who raised her.

Huntley isn’t sure what to make of McKay when she arrives, especially since during their first meeting she ruins a beautiful classical musical performance when the ringtone on her phone blares out a Willie Nelson song. Huntley has some heartache of his own to get over. First there is the loss of his wife many years before and the fact his Aunt BeeBee has suddenly been placed in a home, which means he is left to care for his tween niece and nephew that his aunt adopted years before.

This is an easy going book in some ways, yet there always seem to be something happening. There is a mystery that Huntley must solve when his aunt makes it clear that she wants Huntley to find a family book for her back at her mansion. The students that Huntley is mentoring are staying at the mansion as well and after the niece (Dory) attaches herself to McKay and asks her to come with them to visit Aunt BeeBee, McKay also becomes involved in helping to look for the book.

The mystery and the possibility of an “age-gap” romance (this means Huntley is a bit older than McKay) kept me turning the pages. Walsh’s writing did as well. She turns a simple meeting or interaction between characters into a delightful word treat.

For example:

“The Maestro bent toward me again and surrounded me with those huge arms. I savored the warmth of his chest, the smoothness of his newly shaved cheek sliding across mine, and a scent I’d never smelled on him before––possibly spiced citrus with a hint of pine. If the night had ended right then with my first-ever hug from Huntley Milne, it would have been the best birthday ever.”

Faith is a big part of this book, with both McKay and Huntley asking God to heal Aunt BeeBee, to guide them in their steps, to be a comfort to the children as they fear for their guardian while she is in the nursing home. Bible verses are also shared throughout or intertwined with aspects of the plot throughout.

The Maestro’s Missing Melody is a heartwarming, cozy read that I enjoyed each night before bed to help me decompress from long and stressful days. It’s a story that left me hoping the best for each character, praying (yes, for fictional characters) for them to have a happily ever after.

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot: Come Link With Us!

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 10 Comments

Welcome back to another Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot! Whoot! This link up is hosted by Marsha in the Middle, Melynda from Scratch Made Food & DYI Homemade Household, Sue from Women Living Well After 50, and me.  Look for the link party to go live on Thursdays at 9:30pm EDT. 

This is a blog link-up where we not only allow you to share your past posts but we encourage it. So share away!

We finally got some chilly weather this week, which I don’t like if I have to go out in, but love when I can be home, snuggled under a blanket with a good book. I had told myself I wouldn’t read Christmas-themed books until after Thanksgiving but this week I broke out a series of Christmas novellas, partially because I need to review them for Netgalley and partially because I just needed a light-hearted escape and feel like I’ll need that escape for a long time to come for various reasons.

How is the weather where you are at? It is it time to snuggle under the covers yet? Or maybe where you live that time never comes because it is always pretty warm. Either way, I hope you are able to find some time to relax and decompress if you need to.

Without further ado, let us get on with our most clicked post for this week, which was:

|| 100 Days of Joy Week 6 by Jennifer Jones ||

And my highlights for the week:

|| Slow Cooker Sunday Sauce Delicious Any Day of the Week! by Scratch Made Food For Hungry People ||

This sauce looks so good and versatile.

|| Hurricane Helene: Asheville’s Road to Recovery by A Blessed Homeschool Life ||

This is a hard one but remembering the suffering still going on is important.

|| Getting Old: The Truth At 64 by Is This Mutton ||

I’m so glad you are here and participating in our weekly link-up of family-friendly, fun, educational, interesting, crafty, fashionable, and whatever else posts. I hope you’ll tell your followers about our post (feel free to copy and paste the graphic) and visit the blogs in the link-up. 

Now it is your turn to link up your favorite posts. They can be fashion, lifestyle, DIY, food, etc. All we ask is that they be family friendly. You can link up posts from last week or even from years ago. You can share up to three links each week.

We are always looking for additional hosts so let us know if you want to help out and we are also looking for more links from fashion bloggers so let your fashion bloggers know!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
https://fresh.inlinkz.com/js/widget/load.js?id=c0efdbe6b4add43dd7ef

Comfy, Cozy Cinema: The Grand Budapest Hotel

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 6 Comments

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I have been watching movies from September through November for our Comfy, Cozy Cinema.

For this week Erin suggested Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), which I had never seen and wasn’t sure I wanted to until I watched the trailer and thought it looked like a fun ride. It was a fun ride but it was also so much more. It was mildly offensive to me in some places and heart wrenchingly endearing in others. Overall, it had me laughing and then a few minutes later I would feel a peculiar sadness because I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to feel sad or impressed with how Anderson can twist social commentary up into a neat, comical, satirical package that sends the mind spiraling off onto paths it did not originally plan to take when it pushed play.

The best way to explain this movie is bizarrely ridiculous, quirky, strange and fun while also being oddly delightful. It is not, however, “clean” in parts so if you don’t like movies with some nudity, crude references, or swear words, this is not the movie for you. It is not usually the movie for me either since I don’t watch a ton of rated R movies, but I do, on occasion, watch some rated R movies – so I am not a total puritan over here.

The movie is a story within a story. It is also full of so many famous actors it’s a bit overwhelming. Instead of saying who all is in this movie, one could really say, “who isn’t in this movie?”

Among the actors in the movie are Ralph Fiennes, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Tony Revolori, Tilda Swinton, Jason Swartzman, Owen Wilson, William Defoe, F. Murray Abraham, Saoirse Ronan, Jeff Goldblum, Jude Law, Harvey Keitel, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Murray, and …many, many more

We begin with and author, portrayed by Tom Wilkinson as an adult, talking about  his time at a hotel called The Grand Budapest Hotel and then we switch to a younger version of himself portrayed by Jude Law. Law is leaning on the front desk of The Grand Budapest Hotel, which has seen better days. There is an older gentleman in the lobby of the hotel and Law’s character learns that he is the owner of the hotel.

Eventually the two end up talking and we find out how the owner – a man named Zero Moustafa – came to own the hotel. So, we are being told a story by Law’s future self, who is being told a story by Zero’s future self. Zero as an older man is portrayed by F. Murray Abraham.

Zero tells of how he became a lobby boy under the tutelage of Monsieur Gustave H. (Fiennes), the hotel’s concierge, an eccentric man who liked to sleep with many of his guests.

One of those guests was a very wealthy Octogenarian (Swinton ) who ends up passing away. After she passes away, Gustave tells Zero (the younger zero is played by Tony Revolori) he must come with him to see the woman in her casket and say farewell to her. While at the mansion, Gustave finds out a will reading is going on and he has been bequeathed a very expensive painting called Boy With Apple.

The wealthy woman’s son (Adrien Brody) doesn’t want Gustave to have the painting and tells Gustave and Zero to leave the room. They do and Gustave takes Zero to see the painting. They are alone in the room so Zero suggests they steal the painting. They do and take off back to the Grand Budapest Hotel.

Unfortunately, the police arrive the next day – not to retrieve the painting but instead to charge Gustave with the murder of the wealthy woman.

All sorts of craziness ensue after the arrest (as if things haven’t already been crazy) and the friendship between Zero and Gustave deepens as zero works to help Gustave clear his name.

There is a lot of humor in this movie but also a dark undercurrent of commentary about the state of the world throughout the years in relation to wars, greed, and power.

I don’t know how to explain a Wes Anderson film if you haven’t seen one, but it is essentially like watching people act with little emotion yet still conveying emotions that make you think.

I’ve only seen drama movies with Ralph Fiennes so seeing him in a more comedic role was different for me, but, like Erin, I can’t imagine anyone else pulling this role off. I mean, maybe if I thought hard enough about it I could, but at this point, I couldn’t.

The script for this film was written by Anderson and Hugo Guinness, and, according to Wikipedia (reliable source? I’m not sure.), “Anderson customarily employs a troupe of longtime collaborators—Bill Murray, Adrien Brody, Edward Norton, Owen Wilson, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, and Jason Schwartzman have worked on one or more of his projects. Norton and Murray immediately signed when sent the script.”

For some, this movie might not seem like a comfy or cozy movie and I get that. It’s more quirky than cozy. Like Erin mentioned to be yesterday (when she showed me part of her post), though, the part of the movie that is cozy is the friendship between Gustave and Zero. Zero is sort of yanked into Gustave’s world and become his friend without even knowing what it is going on, but it is still a friendship. Zero looks up to Gustave both as an employer and a person.

I think the theme of the movie can be somewhat explained with one of the popular quotes:  You see, there are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity.” As well as the extension of that, “There are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity… He was one of them. What more is there to say?”

Have you ever seen this one? What did you think of it?

To read Erin’s impressions of it visit her blog.

Also, we will be watching Chocolat, or next movie, together via a watch party at 7 p.m. on Sunday, November 17 and YOU are invited. We will be pressing play together on the movie and chatting in our Discord server, which you can join here: https://discord.gg/TpWNxJ4Z

I really hope you will join us! If not, it will just be Erin and I chatting with each other and that’s not all bad either. Haha!

Classic Movie Impressions: A Woman of Distinction

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 4 Comments


Lately I’ve been watching very old movies that are not well known and really enjoying them. I’m not watching them for anything other than for myself, but I thought I’d tell my blog readers about them in case you are interested as well. Many of them really hold up.

I’ve been watching these movies either on Tubi (so there are commercials) or on Amazon.

A few weeks ago, I watched one called A Woman of Distinction starring Rosalind Russell and Ray Milland. I watched it on Tubi, but I saw yesterday that it is also on YouTube for free.

I had never heard of it before, but it was very good.

I loved the cameo in the beginning by Lucille Ball. She delivered a one-liner that was in her vein of humor and cracked me up. It was her only appearance in the whole movie, but it kicked off the tone of the rest of the movie.

The movie is about Susan Manning Middlecott, the dean of a college in Connecticut. She is one of the first women in this type of position in the country during this time (the movie was released in 1950) and she was a hero during the war, so there is quite a bit of fascination about her among the public.

A magazine article is written about her in Time Magazine and in it she declares that there is no room in her ambitious, career-driven life for romance.

On the other side of the country an astronomy professor has just landed on American soil, ready to present several lectures about – well, astronomy.

Ray Milland plays Professor Alec Stevenson, who is also a war hero but from England.

The public relations firm promoting his lectures needs a way to make his lectures more appealing to potential attendees and begins to brainstorm ways to draw attention to him. Maybe his accolades from his days in the British Army?

He shoots that down. He does, however, ask them where he can find a jeweler who might have sold a locket that he has in his possession. It belonged to an American nurse and was handed to him by a dying soldier. He wants to return the locket to her.

The woman with the PR company – Teddy Evans (Janis Cater)‑­  is intrigued. This could be just the story to get some attention for the professor’s lecturers.

Teddy tags along with him to the jewelers and when she learns that the locket once belonged to Susan, she decides to leak a story to the media suggesting that Susan and Stevenson were once an item.

An article is placed in a newspaper by Teddy without either of their consent and it turns their world upside down. Teddy is deliciously evil, by the way, and played perfectly by Carter. Susan thinks the professor did it himself to get attention for his lectures so she boards a train to Boston to confront him, but instead runs into him, not knowing who he is.

Eventually both of them have to try to explain that there is no romance between them and never was. They’d never even met until this story was falsely put in the papers.

This movie features one of the most hilarious scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie involving a college student and Russell in a car. My dad is not a movie watcher, but I convinced him to watch this one with me and my mom after I had seen it and he really enjoyed that scene and the rest of the movie.

In addition to that scene, the man who played Susan’s dad was very funny.

There were several twists and turns to this one. There is romance, of course, but it wasn’t over the top and was actually very sweet.

 I am not sure if I really agreed with the ending of the movie or with some of the things her father said (like she wasn’t a complete woman without a man.), but I still liked the movie overall. As for what her dad said, um…no…but I think what he really meant is that it would be nice for her to have a family and it would make her feel whole to have a family. Not that a man makes her feel whole. Either way it was awkwardly worded.

This movie was apparently one of many that Rosalind Russell starred in where she was a career-driven woman made to feel bad about being one, instead of focusing on how she could be both a career woman and have a family. I’ve always found it odd that our society seems to think you can either only be a mother or only be a career woman and if you choose one then you must ridicule the other. Movie makers in the 40s and 40s certainly seemed to think this way.

Rosalind Russell’s husband felt Rosalind did both well. After her death he wrote, “Rosalind’s ability to play a career woman who eventually succumbed to true love was consistent with her own life. She was a successful actress and an exemplary wife and mother.”

An article on TCM provided these views of the movie:

Variety called A Woman of Distinction, “a loosely-tied grabbag of screwball and nonsensical doings about two warring-but-loving pedagogues. Sans much logic, the Rosalind Russell-Ray Milland teamwork is good.”

The New York Times critic Bosley Crowther called it a “custard-pie farce,” with Russell “behaving like Mabel Normand in a Keystone comedy. She is letting herself be sprayed with water, smeared with mud, tumbled backwards out of chairs and generally booted and battered. Anything for a laugh.”

Have you ever see this hidden gem?

Sunday Bookends: birthdays, baking pies, and finishing up the third Gladwynn book

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

This week I’m joining up with Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, Deb at Readerbuzz, and Kathyrn at The Book Date.



What’s Been Occurring

This past week was an interesting one in some ways and a regular one in others.

On Tuesday I had a not-so-fun experience at the polling place in my little tiny town. Lesson learned to mail-in ballots from now on. It had nothing to do, by the way, with who I voted for. It just had to do with adults who were rude to my child and it really ticked me off. This paragraph is completely unrelated to politics other than I was in a polling place for an election.

Thursday was better, though, because it was our son’s 18th birthday. My neighbor asked how I felt having an 18-year-old.

I sent her this gif:

Then I told her I was also very proud of my son because he’s grown into a wonderful young man.

It’s all gone by so insanely fast, though. There is so much I miss about him being younger but so much that is also great about this age.

We bought him a War Hammer model set and he’s having a blast painting them. It is a new hobby for him. Little Miss and I traveled to my parents on Thursday to help make apple pies for The Boy because he prefers pie over cake.

My mom ended up coming down with a sinus infection that triggered a flare of her fibromyalgia while we were there. It was a little scary as she was in excruciating pain all over and having some trouble walking. That night she spiked a fever.

We still had a nice day and the next day she was much better and the fever was gone. None of us can really understand why whatever she had only lasted a day and went away, but I do know I prayed a lot that day and night for her healing.

The pie, by the way, was “great” according to The Boy who doesn’t easily give compliments out so Little Miss and I, with my parent’s directions, pulled it out after all.

Yesterday The Boy and The Husband had fun during a father-son day in a city about an hour away. They visited a comic book shop where he  picked up some more figures to paint.

They then walked around town, visiting the local university and a used book shop where my husband picked this up for me:

He knows me way too well. That’s an original 1941 Hardy Boys book. I can not wait to read it – as long as the mildew smell doesn’t mess with my sinuses. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.

I forgot to mention that on Friday we had an art class and then drove the 30-minutes north to pick up our groceries.

Yesterday I spent the day relaxing with an old movie and a new cozy mystery show and also worked on the final chapters of Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree.

I definitely am not used to Daylight Savings yet I’ve come to realize. I was so tired all day yesterday, for one, and then at one point I yawned and thought how I could go to bed soon. That’s when I looked at my laptop clock and it said 6:42.

“6:42? For real??” I cried. “I thought it was 8!!”

I suppose my body will get used to it – you know, by spring when we spring forward.

What I/we’ve been Reading

I am reading The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Christy by Catherine Marshall, and The Maestro’s Missing Melody by Amy Walsh

The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood. Yes, I enjoyed it and yes I just started the series and no it does not keep to the book.

The Secret of the Wooden Lady by Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew)

The Farmer’s Son by John Connell

The Husband is reading The Housemaid by Frieda McFadden

What We watched/are Watching

This week Erin and I watched Bringing Up Baby with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn for our Comfy, Cozy Cinema.

I watched Harvey with Jimmy Stewart on my own.

I also watched the first two episodes of The Marlow Murder Club on Amazon (that is all that is out so far).



What I’m Writing

I sound like a broken record but I am finishing Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree.

This past week on the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening To

I am listening to The Shepherd’s Abiding by Jan Karon on Audible.

I am also listening to this song my Downhere:

Photos from Last Week

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 13 Comments

Welcome back to another Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot! Whoot! This link up is hosted by Marsha in the Middle, Melynda from Scratch Made Food & DYI Homemade Household, Sue from Women Living Well After 50, and me.  Look for the link party to go live on Thursdays at 9:30pm EDT. 

This is a blog link-up where we not only allow you to share your past posts but we encourage it. So share away!

Today is my son’s 18th birthday! So that is pretty exciting for our family.

Let’s move on to our most clicked posts for this week.

|| Rolling in Dough Week Three Of At Home by From This Side of the Pond ||

My highlights for this week:

|| Maple Syrup Roasted Butternut Squash by Esme Salon ||


|| Coloring Through the Book of Psalms by Amy’s Creative ||

|| Yielding to the Fire by A New Lens ||

I’m so glad you are here and participating in our weekly link-up of family-friendly, fun, educational, interesting, crafty, fashionable, and whatever else posts. I hope you’ll tell your followers about our post (feel free to copy and paste the graphic) and visit the blogs in the link-up. 

Now it is your turn to link up your favorite posts. They can be fashion, lifestyle, DIY, food, etc. All we ask is that they be family friendly. You can link up posts from last week or even from years ago. You can share up to three links each week.

We are always looking for additional hosts so let us know if you want to help out and we are also looking for more links from fashion bloggers so let your fashion bloggers know!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
https://fresh.inlinkz.com/js/widget/load.js?id=c0efdbe6b4add43dd7ef

Comfy, Cozy Cinema: Bringing Up Baby

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 10 Comments

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I have been watching Comfy Cozy mmovies This week we had to switch up the movie we were watching because Amazon and Frevee and all the other free streaming services removed Skylark, which is the second movie in the Sarah, Plain, and Tall series.

Instead we chose Bringing Up Baby at my suggestion because I wanted something funny and goofy but also cozy.

I’ve seen this movie twice before and it is absolute chaos and craziness. Everyone except poor Cary Grant is off their rocker and it is glorious.

The movie stars Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. Katherine is absolutely batty in this film which makes it all even more hilarious.

Cary Grant’s character (Dr. David Huxley) is a paleontologist who accidentally runs into Katherine Hepburn’s character (Susan Vance) a totally nuts socialite who immediately latches on to Cary and decides she’s going to become obsessed with him and make his life a living hell.

In the beginning of the movie, David has been building a dinosaur skeleton for years and the last piece of it has just been found. He and his fiancé – Alice Swallow – are thrilled that the intercostal clavical has been found and will be arriving soon in the mail. Alice – a very uptight, proper women who says the point of their marriage will be to only advance his research and not for love — also knows that more money needs to be secured for his research so she tells David he must go golfing with an important doner.

This is where he meets crazy Susan who tries to steal his car, takes off with him riding on the footboard while he tries to tell her it is his car, and then leads him on various crazy adventures. He runs into her again at a dinner where he is trying to secure a donation from a woman named Elizabeth Randall who is considering a $1 million donation.

The scenes at the dinner party include this a hilarious scene where Katherine’s dress gets ripped and she and Cary have to make their way through a crowded dining room with Cary against her back to make sure nothing is scene. It is so classic and hilarious and always has me laughing.

David thinks he has shaken Susan loose after a bizarre journey with her where she tries to wake up the doner he’d been trying to meet at the golf course and David ends up knocking him out with a rock.

The next morning the clavical arrives and David is thrilled, but somehow Susan gets his number and, thinking he is a zoologist rather than a palentologist, she asks him how she should take care of a leopard named Baby that her brother sent her from Africa.

David promptly tells her he doesn’t care about her Leopard and doesn’t know anything about it, but when she trips and falls while on the call, he thinks she’s being attacked. She’s thrilled he thinks this and hams it up even more, which sends him flying out the door to her apartment to “rescue” her.

Collection Christophel / RnB © RKO Radio Pictures

Of course, when he gets there, Susan is fine, but yet another plot twist is coming up when Susan says she needs to go to Connecticut with the leopard because she doesn’t want her aunt to find the leopard there when she decides to visit. The aunt is going to give Susan $1 million someday and if the aunt finds the leopard there, she won’t give her the money.

So Susan decides they need to take Baby to the country in Connecticut and begs David to take her. Somehow David gets caught up in taking her, even though it is his wedding day and he needs to be in New York to get married. While in Connecticut, Susan realizes she is in love with David.

 I should also mention that to calm Baby they have to sing, “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby.”

The movie is – as I said earlier – absolute chaos from start to finish.

Cary and Katherine are the perfect pair to play against each other in a screwball comedy and had some experience with it already since they also starred opposite each other in Sylvia Scarlett (1935), and Holiday , which released the same year as Bringing Up Baby (1938). They also starred together in The Philadelphia Story in 1940.

This is a risqué movie in many ways with a lot of double entendre moments and innuendos that are clean but a bit sassy. I suppose some people could make the double entendre moments more crude, but there are people who can do that with anything.

I wanted to know about the leopard that was used in the film and while looking up information about it, I thought it was interesting to read that the Jack Russell Terrier in the film was the same dog used to play Asta in The Thin Man film series, which is a favorite series of mine. The dog’s real name was Skippy incidentally. The tame leopard (Baby) and another leopard (you will have to watch the movie to know what that is all about) were both played by a trained leopard named Nissa.

The trainer was a Swedish woman named Olga Celeste, who would stand by with a whip during shooting. According to Wikipedia, at one point, when Hepburn spun around, her skirt twirled and Nessa lunged at her. She was subdued when Celeste cracked the whip. After that Hepburn wore heavy perfume to keep Nessa Calm but Grant was terrified of Nissa and a stand in had to be brought in with his scenes with the leopard.

This movie has some terribly hilarious quotes including:

Cary: “In moments of quiet, I am strangely drawn to you, but well there haven’t been any moments of quiet with you.”

Cary: “It never will be clear while she’s explaining it.”

Cary: “You don’t understand: this is my car!”

Katherine: “You mean this is your car? Your golf ball? Your car? Is there anything in the world that doesn’t belong to you?

Cary: “Yes, thank heaven, YOU!”

Katherine:” Anyway, David, when they find out who we are they’ll let us out.”

Cary: “When they find out who you are they’ll pad the cell.”

The movie was directed by Howard Hawks. The screenplay was written by Dudley Nicholas and Hagar Wilde and was based on a short story by Wilde that appeared in Collier’s Magazine in 1937.

Have you ever seen this chaotic comedy? What did you think of it?

You can read Erin’s impression here:https://crackercrumblife.com/2024/11/07/comfy-cozy-cinema-bringing-up-baby/

Next week we will be watching Grand Budapest Hotel and the following week we will be having a group watch of Chocolate on November 17 at a time to be announced.

You can catch up with my impressions of the movies we’ve watched here: https://lisahoweler.com/movie-reviews-impressions/

Movie change for this week’s Comfy, Cozy Cinema

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 4 Comments

I’m sorry this post is late, but we had to change our movie this week for the Comfy, Cozy Cinema because it turns out that Skylark is no longer streaming anywhere.

Erin and I decided to change the movie to Bringing Up Baby — a screwball comedy with Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. This is streaming on Tubi for free and several other streaming services. It is also on YouTube for free, but I can’t guarantee the quality of it.

If you decide to watch the movie and write about it, you can share your thoughts with us on our link on Thursday.

Also, we will be watching Chocolat together on November 17 at a time to be announced. We will be pressing play together on the movie and chatting in our Discord server, which you can join here: https://discord.gg/TpWNxJ4Z

Here is our full list of movies we are watching: