i can't give you anything but love, baby

bringing up baby is such a wonderful ridiculous film, snappy dialogue, slapstick idiocy,

cary grant, katharine hepburn and a leopard. what more could you want?

the leopard was played by nissa, who apparently liked hepburn's perfume. hepburn liked nissa, too and didn't mind filming scenes with her. (more about nissa the leopard)

nevertheless bringing up baby includes lots of split screen photography youtube excerpts here including one which shows the split screen techniques

in the original screenplay, baby (the leopard) was written as a panther. (in africa and asia, a panther is a black leopard. but panthers can also be black jaguars, if they are south american).

curiously, the "leopard" in bringing up baby is sent to susan vance (katharine hepburn) by her brother in south america. so really, they should have made baby a jaguar. it would have been quite cool hearing katharine pronounce, "jag-waah"

ogden nash tells us (in the Pather),

The panther is like a leopard,

Except it hasn't been peppered.

Should you behold a panther crouch,

Prepare to say Ouch.

Better yet, if called by a panther,

Don't anther.

you'd think this would be irrelevant in australia, but no.

big cats are seen to prowl all over the countryside, sightings on big cats victoria, and an article in the ballarat courier lots of sheep and cattle being mauled, but no people

sadly, a "safe" leopard just recently mauled/killed a television crew member in namibia

here is a much safer kind of leopard, because it's a cardboard cut-out,

David Chancellor via triangletriangle

one of things i like about leopards is that they like to loll in trees

i remember reading about that leopards (or possibly panthers) "drop" from their vantage points in trees onto unsuspecting prey strolling below

i don't know where i got this from.

they do haul their prey up trees to keep it safe from competing carnivores like lions and hyenas more about leopards

here is a picture of someone in the 30s with their pet cheetah... presumably relatively

"safe",

although i wouldn't want to be whatever that cheetah is looking at. as sylvester liked to say to tweetie, hello breakfast!

another "safe" pussy cat, looks like a leopard
this confusion between leopards and cheetahs, reminds me of the scene in Gallipoli, at the beginning,
Jack: What are your legs?
Archy Hamilton: Springs. Steel springs.
Jack: What are they going to do?
Archy Hamilton: Hurl me down the track.
Jack: How fast can you run?
Archy Hamilton: As fast as a leopard.
Jack: How fast are you going to run?
Archy Hamilton: As fast as a leopard!
Jack: Then let's see you do it!