User Reviews

"How to Raise a Baby" is an American black-and-white short film from 1938, so this one has its 80th anniversary this year and it is another little fun educational movie starring Walk of Famer Robert Benchley. It runs for 9 minutes and I must say with these I always think of these Disney Goofy "How to" short films because the approach to comedy is really very similar, only that it is not animated here. We hear a narrator saying wise things that make perfect sense while watching the protagonist fail basically. Benchley has some comedic talent withut a doubt and I assume he should be more known than he is today. I think he was even a bit of a big star back then, but now he is really forgotten by most. Anyway, I have seen some other films from him and not liked them all, even if he was decent, but this one here entertained me well, especially in the second half. Early on it is a bit about cleaning and washing the baby and not too bad, but it gets better eventually. The part about how a good father is gifted at pretending to be fast asleep when the baby cries at night was fun and so was the spinach feeding sequence, probably the highlight of the movie. There are other scenes that were okay about the very basics of what you have to know when you want to become a father and it worked well I think. Not much mother action here except the previously mentioned waking -up part, but the longer this film went the more I enjoyed it, even if it gets slightly worse at the very end again with the boy growing up, but more children already on the way. And I also think it is even at 80 years old a film that would work very well today. The comedy has not aged badly at all. You could take a comedic actor from the 21st century and re-enact it with him and the exact same script and it would still function and entertain. That sure is an achievement. Go see it.