Hapy Birthday to the late, great Howard Hawks. Let's celebrate with one of his best, Bringing Up Baby. Here's my brief ode to Hepburn, Grant, bones, dogs, leopards and… "You're a fixation."

We should all miss the screwball comedy. An inspired, trenchant, romantic, witty, glamorous, sexy (so sexy) genre that went the way of telegrams, automats and men wearing fedoras without looking ridiculous, these pictures, when shifted into high gear, were funnier, racier, edgier and sometimes, exceptionally daring And top baby is Howard Hawks' 1938 Bringing Up Baby, in which the luminous lunatics aren't relegated to amusing supporting straitjackets; they're running the asylum.

That's Katharine Hepburn as Susan, an adventure-seeking, possibly insane heiress who immediately decides she's found her man after setting eyes on David, the bespectacled, uptight, also possibly insane paleontologist playd by Cary Grant. Why is she so smitten? Well, yes, he's Cary Grant, but Grant works this nervous nerd routine so beautifully that you actually wonder. And then, Hepburn! She's so maniacally, gorgeously single-minded in her approach (as you probably well remember, she manages to trap him in Connecticut with a pet leopard, a yapping dog and Grant's missing intercostal clavicle, which results in many amusing double entendre of "where's the bone?"), that she's more Marx Brother than Desperate Daniela. And who doesn't root for Harpo?

Scripted by Dudley Nichols and Hagar Wilde (with some winning moments of ad lib by Grant and Hepburn) and directed by Hawks with such an energetic pace (Hawks told Peter Bogdanovich, "You get more pace if you pace the actors quickly within the frame rather than cross cutting fast"), there's so much joyful, inspiring anarchy here that the movie never grows old. It still feels remarkably modern.

Much like Hawks' frequently comic (and yes, dark) Scarface (my favorite Hawks' picture and I think, one of the greatest American films ever made) in which Paul Muni is the front and center murderous, oddly lovable loon, Baby offers a rejection of how one should conduct oneself in supposed "regular" society, both in living lives with "dignity" (Oh, Grant and that colorless potential marriage) and how one persuasively woos a suitor (is stalking OK? It is with Kate Hepburn), that the picture remains downright radical. Both Scarface and Baby look at the American Dream, what it's supposed to represent in career and marriage, and decide they are going to create those dreams themselves, no matter how crazy. And with some powerful, deadly pets along for the ride. In Scarface it's Tony's tommy gun, in Baby it's Susan's leopard.

And in Baby, all side actors are tested to their limits with this dizzy duo (that's Charles Ruggles, Walter Catlett, May Robson, Fritz Feld and more) and go along (exasperated), attempt to stop but mainly, endure their tumult. And then there's the lines — here's a famous one, perhaps the most famous: When Grant opens the door to Hepburn's perplexed Aunt Elizabeth (Robson) who demands to know why he's clad in Hepburn's frilly bathrobe, Grant jumps and memorably exclaims, "Because I just went GAY all of sudden!" To this day, that line always, always kills.

But my favorite is one that truly slid by the squares-ville production code: When Hepburn play-acting "Swinging Door Susie," a hardened ex-con who hollers out "Hey Flatfoot!" (can we lose "pig" and bring this copper slur back?), states, "I'll unbutton my puss and shoot the works." Oh, my. Wonderful. "Open up, I'll make you feel hot," she says. Indeed she does. God bless you for keeping that in there, Howard Hawks.

And again, Happy Birthday, Howard Hawks. 

And then there's this scene. And that gown:

*From MSN Movies 100 Favorite Films in which MSN writers pick their favorites. This one made my list. Read them all here.

“La De Da.” A song I never tire of and a revelation the first time I heard the unheralded stunner. Link Wray’s “La De Da” from his sorely underheard 1971 album "Link Wray" was recorded in Wray’s chicken shack on his farm in Accokeek, Maryland and produced by the ingenious Steve Verroca (who also wrote "La De Da"). Boy does it scorch your heart. Soulful, raggedly beautiful vocals and true grit rock by one the great pioneers, the song sounds a lot like the Stone's "Exile" before "Exile" but the genuine article. This is authentic fire and brimstone, sincere swamp ("Black River Swamp"); music full of feeling by a man who had felt and experienced a whole hell of a lot. When compared to Elvis and his impoverished background, "Rumble" Wray said: "He grew up white-man poor. I was growing up Shawnee poor."

And Wray was creating this primo stuff in the 1960s. On the liner notes for "Wray's Three Track Shack," John Collins stated it beautifully: "In the late 1960s there was a studied attempt by such musicians as The Band, Neil Young, Guy Clark and David Ackles, all in their own way, to evoke a rock n roll version of Americana, of white clapboard chapels, dungareed farmers, dusty drifters and outlaws… It turned out that Link and his brothers had been playing the real thing all along, hidden away on the farm. The eponymous 1971 album grew out of the landscape, the struggles and the religious certainties of Link's own past. He didn't have to adopt the pose of a stubble-chinned homesteader. He was one."

Indeed he was. If you can get your hands on it, grab "Wray's Three Track Shack," a compilation containing three Wray albums: "Link Wray," "Beans and Fatback" and "Mordicai Jones." Do it.

I'm glad (and maybe even "so proud," as the Wray song goes) I got the chance to see brilliant legend Link perform live, before he passed away. Whenever I get down I remember that, during that show, Wray handed me his guitar in the middle of "Rumble" — I held the man's guitar! It still feels like a dream. One of the greatest moments of my life. As I wrote rather effusively, but with sincerity, last year, Link Wray is God. Now join me in spray-painting that on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum where Link Wray has, ludicrously, not been inducted. Listen and believe. 

With the 80th anniversary of its first release, I'm dipping into my archives to look at that hot and Hedy enchantress called Ecstasy.

Hedy. Just looking at the woman, it's easy to repeat her name after exhaling a delicious deep breath — Hhheeeddeeey. Her name respires like the title of one of her most famous, and infamous films, Ecstasy. Though some consider the picture a novelty, a ye olden cinematic curio of Hollywood losing its nut over a Czech import, or simply a great place to watch Hedy Lamarr cavort around completely naked, Ecstasy (released in Prague in 1933) is a much richer, liberating, dreamily beautiful experience than all that. 

An intense, enchanting, and, at the time, extremely taboo, study of a young woman's sexuality, the picture actually gets things right, either via magnificent, naturalistic, erotic imagery, or moments of blunt explanation. Without demonizing its subject , without overly squishy emotionality, without outright exploitation and yet, without embarrassing, soft-core erotica sensibilities (that kind of movie didn't really exist yet) and without words (mostly), Gustav Machaty's silent-to-talkies transition Ecstasy gets to the heart of some simultaneously simple and convoluted facts of life: Women desire sex. They enjoy sex. And if they find that attraction, they'll have sex, even if they're a little scared, and even if they're afraid of the resulting guilt. Given that we currently live in an often morally confused society, and specifically, confused about women (the Virgin/Whore dynamic has compounded with Hester Prynne/Fuck me/Stone Me complications), Ecstasy, though willing to explore the sadness, jealousy and tragedy sex can create, is a lot more honest about its confusion. But no stones for Hedy — Ecstasy is actually fond of its sexed up lass. 

Lamarr (then Hedy Kiesler — her real name was Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler) stars as Eva, a young bride who marries an older man (Emil Jerman) only to discover on her wedding night that he's uninterested in love-making. With extreme D.H. Lawrence ennui and yearnings (the movie later ventures into Thomas Hardy territory), Eva can't endure this sexless union. Watching and sighing over the presence of blissful, satiated couples, she's filled with depression over her unexplored needs. Fittingly, and, some may think, perversely, she leaves the old man and runs home to her horse-breeder father, who embraces his sad little girl while huffing that he'll never understand women. Well, some understand. Or at least, attempt to try. And so comes the famous sequence.

Eva enjoys a nude swim while her horse stands in wait. Intrigued by the advances of another horse in the distance  , the steed dashes off, taking Eva's clothes with him. Eva pursues this enormous figuration of coitus, until a young, handsome worker also helps and then, (happily) happens upon the naked nymph.

What beauty unfolds. The mesmeric scene is filmed like foreplay, as the water, sky, sweaty laborers, and fondling horses are continually referenced while Eva runs through the woods — a once happy swimmer, now a frustrated, frightened, and soon-to-be thrilled woman. Looking at this obviously — as a representation of her desires –  she, of course, collides into the most fetching man she's ever seen, aptly named Adam (the fantastic Aribert Mog, who sadly died before ever reaching the age of 40). But even after the smiling, flirtatious Adam shows he can place a bee in a flower (how could one resist?), the film wisely holds out — at first.

Come nighttime, Eva's bedroom pacing is too much — she must make her way to Adam's shed.  And again, what beauty. The consummated act is shot lovingly and boldly, holding onto Lamarr's fervent face. Lamarr claims the director pricked her with a pin to induce her rapturous reactions. It worked.

Explained as such it may sound coarse, but Ecstasy paces its sexual awakening so perfectly and with such palpable chemistry between its two leads that its spell is almost overwhelmingly bewitching. Mingling mammals, insects, nature, weather and bodies with the mysterious ions charging a swooning man and woman, the nudity, voyeurism and sensuality feel natural, beneficial and so combustible that the sad ending makes perfect sense.

Naturally the movie was banned. No one was going to convince Joseph Breen that a movie containing nudity and an on-screen orgasm wasn't porn. He called the film "highly, even dangerously indecent." No matter the picture is not classic exploitation, nor does it appear to have been made for mere shock value, but tell that to the judge. It was also one of the earliest films to be banned in the United States by the National Legion of Decency.

Though hailed a masterpiece when it opened in Prague, the film was long censored and much sought after in the states, particularly when its lead became Miss Hedy Lamarr, MGM movie star. Though the gorgeous Lamarr wasn't given enough interesting parts, she was endlessly fascinating and intelligent. And in real life too: her early exploits before fleeing Austria, her invention of the "Secret Communication System" (which basically invented wi-fi, incredible) her later shoplifting. She was quite a creature  — especially opposite Charles Boyer in 1938's Algiers, and as the exotic Tondelayo in 1942's White Cargo, and of course, as a young, non-starlet, natural in Ecstasy.

I love watching Hedy Lamarr — even in her lesser pictures (and she made some dull ones), which taps into another reason why Ecstasy remains so intriguing. Like the movie itself (and Machaty) you want to look at her, but not just, as stated earlier, because she'll eventually find herself in the raw — but because you'll find yourself in her. Raw. Her curiosity and desire is primal and innate  — a simultaneous capitulation and freedom — and yet, wistful, as if Eva is conjuring these events from a special memory. 

Ecstasy is for female desire, but it's also for male desire, and it well understands impotence, jealousy and guilt, not through words, but through cinema, making it all the more mythical. Here, the aftermath of the act is human — strong, but also delicate, perilous and hurtful. And it always hurts someone. No wonder Machaty was prodding his butterfly with pins.