Hepburn is hot again, and these movies are why The Philadelphia Story, Bringing Up Baby are two of her best performances (The Philadelphia Story Special Edition; Bringing Up Baby Special Edition) By Katherine Monk Published February 25, 2005 With a thank-you from Glenn Close for teaching her the beauty of acting, and a tip of the hat from Cate Blanchett in her acceptance speech for winning best supporting actress honours at the recent Screen Actors Guild awards, Katharine Hepburn seems to be back in fashion - with a vengeance. This week, two of her gems hit special edition DVD, and what a comic treat they are. Bringing Up Baby and The Philadelphia Story are not only classics, they reflect a rebirth for the actor once deemed "box office poison." Picking up the pieces of her life left in the wake of a hurricane that destroyed her family home in Connecticut, Hepburn got a call from old beau and playwright Philip Barry - who was writing a play about a society woman, Tracy Samantha Lord. She is about to enter her second marriage when her handsome and funny first husband re-enters her life. When Hepburn told her new beau, Howard Hughes, about the script, he told her to buy the rights before it had even opened on Broadway. Eventually, Hughes purchased the rights for Hepburn - holding back a percentage for himself - and the two would forever be bound by their shared contract, and big receipts, for The Philadelphia Story. "People don't realize how ingenious it was," said Hepburn of the script, "how Barry drew from all three men, all from different social positions. And up until the last moment of the play, there's a good argument to be made for Tracy to marry any one of them. In the end, I think the play draws the truest - and most romantic - conclusion." Special edition features on the new DVD include a George Cukor movie trailer gallery, two documentaries, Katharine Hepburn: All About Me, A Self-Portrait, and The Men Who Made the Movies: George Cukor), the Robert Benchley short film That Inferior Feeling, and two radio adaptations with the film's stars. Bringing Up Baby (1938) was shot and released before Hepburn's resurrection via The Philadelphia Story, but it established the comic chemistry she shared with co-star Cary Grant, as he plays a straight-laced paleontologist to Hepburn's fast-talking, scatter-brained society lady. The movie was considered a risk for RKO, which figured Hepburn was to blame for the box-office failure of Stage Door. They hoped Bringing Up Baby would help their one-time diva regain her former glory in comedy. With Grant riding shotgun to Hepburn's trouser-sporting female, they figured it was a slam dunk - but it wasn't. It did accomplish one thing for Hepburn, however, and that was her ability to play physical comedy. "I had a very strong body," she said. "That allowed me to play broad, physical comedy very well because I had complete confidence in my moves. And I was haughty enough in the mind of the public that it would be funny for them to see me roll in the mud, or have the back of my dress ripped off." The Howard Hawks comedy has survived the ages because of the now-legendary status of its two stars. The special edition DVD features a digitally remastered transfer, audio commentary from Peter Bogdanovich, Howard Hawks' movie trailer, two documentaries (Cary Grant, A Class Apart and The Men Who Made Movies: Howard Hawks) and original studio shorts. Ratings: The Philadelphia Story - Rating 5 (of five) Bringing Up Baby - Rating 5