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Screwball comedies were very popular with 1930s moviegoers, but they’d faded away by the time Peter Bogdanovich revived the genre with WHAT’S UP, DOC?

DOC, starring Barbra Streisand & Ryan O’Neal, premiered Mar. 9, 1972 at New York’s Radio City Music Hall and was a mega-hit for Warner Bros. It broke house records going back to 1933 at the iconic 5,960 seat movie palace. Its $66M domestic gross made it 1972’s third biggest hit after THE GODFATHER ($136.4M) & THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE ($84.6M).

Like many films, DOC started out quite differently from what finally reached the screen. The project was originally loosely based on Herman Raucher’s novel “A Glimpse of Tiger.” Elliott Gould & Kim Darby were to star and Anthony Harvey (THE LION IN WINTER) was going to direct. Everything changed, however, when Gould departed four days into production. After some Hollywood twists and turns, the project wound up in the hands of Peter Bogdanovich, who’d directed THE LAST PICTURE SHOW.

Bogdanovich, who was also a film buff, critic & movie historian, wanted to remake Howard Hawks’ 1938 classic screwball comedy BRINGING UP BABY, which starred Katherine Hepburn & Cary Grant. But this time the genders would be reversed so the wildly unpredictable character would now be a woman — and the perfect role for Barbra Streisand.

Bogdanovich recalls WB’s then production chief, John Calley, saying Streisand really wanted to work with him and asking what kind of movie he’d want to make with her. “Oh, I don’t know,” Bogdanovich replied, “kind of a screwball comedy, something like BRINGING UP BABY — daffy girl, square professor, everything works out all right.”

After Calley said, “Do it,” a screenplay had to be written immediately. Streisand & O’Neal both had commitments in place, so filming had to start in August 1971. It was already May when Calley gave the project a green light. Two screenwriting teams were put to work separately — Robert Benton & David Newman, who’d written BONNIE AND CLYDE, and Buck Henry, who wrote THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT, which had starred Streisand. Benton/Newman and Henry each wrote three screenplay drafts for Bogdanovich.

The film’s title, which fits so well with its screwball comedy antics, is the line for which WB’s animated superstar Bugs Bunny is famously known. It’s also an homage to the studio’s Looney Tunes cartoon series with  Bugs, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck & friends.

DOC, set in San Francisco, is 94 minutes of relentless action and laughs, that builds to (SPOILER ALERT if you’ve somehow missed it!) a chase scene spoofing the one in the 1968 San Francisco-set action thriller BULLITT. DOC’s 11 minute chase cost a then staggering $1M of its $4M budget and took 19 days to shoot with 32 stuntmen risking life & limb.