Ross622 Howard Hawks' Ball of Fire is one of the best love stories that I have ever seen in a long time since Some Like It Hot (1959), and The Apartment (1960) because this movie has all the perfect ingredients to tell this kind of story. The movie stars Gary Cooper as an English Professor named Bertram Potts who is working with a group of other professors on finishing an encyclopedia (which Potts estimates that it will take at least 3 years to finish) even while Potts is on an "investigation" on modern slang throughout town in order to learn more about it, then Potts ends up going to a nightclub where he meets a singer and burlesque girl named Sugarpuss O'Shea (played by Barbara Stanwyck in an Oscar nominated performance) who is singing a slang song called "Drum Boogie" which gives Potts a fine opportunity to write the slang words in the song on a page in his notepad. Then after the concert is over he heads to O'Shea's dressing room where he meets he in order for her to give more slang ideas and is sent out in a hurry using slang which was pretty funny to see, then that same night O'Shea goes to the bachelor house where Potts lives and they start an instant relationship and have their fun until the mob takes her away from him and she ends up getting forced to marry a mob boss named Joe Lilac (played by Dana Andrews) but Sugarpuss already knows that Potts wouldn't her get away with Lilac. The casting for this movie was excellent especially the supporting cast besides Andrews, also includes Henry Travers, Oskar Homolka, S.Z. Zakall, and so much more, and especially the wonderful screenplay by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, and last but not least Howard Hawks's excellent direction for the movie. For which this movie teaches an important lesson which is that if people want to marry one another the couple who are engaged to one another whoever it may be have to be committed to one another at least for a long time.

SimonJack "Ball of Fire" opened in the U.S. on Dec. 2, 1941. Europe had been at war for more than a year, and in just five more days Japan would bomb Pearl Harbor, bringing the U.S. into the war. Hollywood made many comedies during the depression to help lift spirits; and now it was doing the same thing to help ease tensions and lift the spirits on the home front. This wonderful comedy has several big name stars, some music and rhythm by Gene Krupa and his band, and a great supporting cast. That includes some of the best supporting actors of the time. Several were foreign- born, all from nations at war. One can imagine the emotion they must have felt. And, how they may have viewed their profession as important for lifting the spirits of the Allies and the hopes of their people back home. The names of many characters are hilarious.Seven of the support cast are professors working with Gary Cooper who plays Prof. Potts. They include Oskar Homolka, born in Vienna, Austria, as Prof. Gurkakoff; S.Z. "Cuddles" Sakall from Budapest, Hungary, as Prof. Magenbruch; Leonid Kinskey from St. Petersburg, Russia, as Prof. Quintana; and three from England, including Richard Hadyn as Prof. Oddly, Henry Travers as Prof. Jerome and Aubrey Mather as Prof. Peagram. One was U.S.-born – Tully Marshall as Prof. Robinson.The film has several other big name actors. Frequent leading man Dana Andrews plays the boss of the bad guys, Joe Lilac. His gang includes Dan Duryea as Duke Pastrami and Ralph Peters as Asthma Anderson. Allen Jenkins is the garbage man. "Ball of Fire" received four Oscar nominations, including best actress for Barbara Stanwyck as Sugarpuss O'Shea. It is a very funny film, with much witty, clever dialog. But, this type of comedy may not be for everyone. Much of the humor develops around language and words. So, those who don't like language and fun with words aren't likely to get much out of this film. But all others should enjoy it immensely. Some of the slang words in the script were a far stretch even for the time of the movie. In a late scene, Duke Pastrami is talking to Sugarpuss: "Now meantime, lay low and stay close to the Ameche." Sugarpuss: "Okay! The what?" Pastrami: "The telephone." Later, she uses it as a slang question to Prof. Potts, whom she calls "Pottsy." When he asks what that is, she explains that it's the name of the inventor of the telephone. He interrupts to say that the inventor of the phone was Alexander …, but she interrupts to explain that Ameche played the inventor in the movie. That was a 1939 biopic with Don Ameche, Henry Fonda and Loretta Young. A nice little jab here at the intelligence of those Americans who "learn" their history from the movies. Here are some more funny lines and exchanges from the film. Sugarpuss picks up a book and says, "Oh, Greek philosophy. I've got a set like this with a radio inside." She turns to Potts and says, "Well, how do we start professor? You see, this is the first time anybody moved in on my brain."Potts: "Living in this house, cut off from the world, I've lost touch. And it's inexcusable. That man talked a living language (slang). I embalmed some dead phrases. 'Slang,' as the poet Carl Sandberg has said, 'is language which takes off its coat, spits on its hands and goes to work.'"Sugarpuss: "Who was that guy learned so much from watching an apple drop?" Prof. Gurkakoff: "Isaac Newton, 1642 to 1727, the law of gravity." Sugarpuss: "Yeah, that's him. And I want you to look at me as another apple, Professor Potts. Just another apple."Potts: "For four days we have been drifting, Miss O'Shea. The needle of the compass no longer points to the magnetic pole. It points, if I may say so, to your ankle. I shall regret the absence of your keen mind. Unfortunately, it is inseparable from an extremely distracting body."Sugarpuss: "Don't tell me the jive session has beat off without baby."Potts: "Miss O'Shea, the construction 'on account of because' outrages every grammatical law." Sugarpuss: "So what? I came on account of because I couldn't stop thinking about you after you left my dressing room. On account of because I thought you were big and cute and pretty."Prof. Magenbruch: "I thought you meant to leave us in protest, Miss Bragg." Miss Bragg: "A nurse does not quit her post when an epidemic reaches a crisis."Sugarpuss reads the inscription inside a ring: "Richard ill. Who's Richard ill?" Potts: "Richard the Third."Joe Lilac on the phone: "Where are you? We're not down here to enjoy ourselves. This is a wedding."Sugarpuss: "Eight squirrelly cherubs, right out of this world." Prof. Magenbruch: "Did you hear, Potts? I'm a squirrelly cherub?"Potts: "Now let's have it out. I made an ass of myself and I know it." Prof. Jerome: "Oh well, we all have." Potts: "Yes, but I was the lead donkey."Prof. Oddly, a widower the past 20 years, offers some courtship advice to Potts: "Being a botanist, I find an astonishing parallel between a woman's heart and the wind flower, or anemone nemorosa. Perhaps you know the plant, how it waits for the warm sunshine and soft winds before it unfolds its petals. Sensitive and delicate. One rough, impetuous bee can completely destroy the blooms."Prof. Magenbruch: "Did you … did you get the records?" Prof. Peagram: "Well, they were all out of 'Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar.' But I got 'Chicka Chicka Boom Boom' and 'Shoot the Sherbet to Me Herbert.'"

misswestergaard Howard Hawks' "Ball of Fire" is a a sly urban updating of the Snow-White fairy tale, as well as an effervescent look at the fertile potential of clashing cultures. Stanwyck's "Sugarpuss" O'Shea is fast-talking and sexy, a showgirl who bewitches Gary Cooper's English professor with her invigorating vocabulary, as well as her dishy ankles. Cooper's Professor Bertram Potts is a young stuffed shirt, self-entombed in a fusty, academic cloister where he and 7 other reclusive intellectuals hammer away at writing an encyclopedia. Sugarpuss invades the hermitage with a bright, modern femininity; she is bold, playful, and self-possessed, reviving the inert libidos and general joie de vivre of the whole bashful fraternity. In one delightful scene, she instructs the clumsy, inexperienced older men in a bracing conga line. Foxy Stanwyck and an impressive crew of consummate character actors bring great humor and sweetness to the kind of scene that in other hands might become merely corny. Though Sugarpuss rejuvenates the men with the energy of youth, she requires a different kind of rejuvenation. As the film reminds us, detached vitality is what make a shark a shark. The academic brotherhood may be stale and lonely, but they are open-hearted and loyal. Unlike Sugarpuss' calculating gangster boyfriend, played slickly by Dana Andrews, Professor Potts is tender and thoughtful. Most importantly, the young "Pottsy", as Sugarpuss calls him, is also trusting enough to look foolish. In Howard Hawks' films, making a fool of oneself is often linked to the experience of real love. Being guileless enough to be undone by genuine emotion is proof of valor. Both boyish and stiff, Cooper is pitch perfect here. As he falls for Sugarpuss, his face reveals all-- staid shyness competes with impassioned delight. We root for him.But being sweet and genuine aren't enough. This is a film about essential combinations: passion and intellect, sweetness and vigor.It's not until Potts avers his PHYSICAL passion for Sugarpuss that her heart really gives over. Later he must engage in fisticuffs, surely the first of his life, with the smug gangster. Despite amusingly nerdy preparation(he studies a hardbound guide to pugilism), the actual battle awakens his animal instincts. His earlier effete intellectualism is now fully redeemed.Hawks' film is unequivocal: Without lusty physical vigor, we're entombed. Without tender, intimate relationships, we may as well jump in the ocean and swim the clock round.Two Notes:1. This film is neither anti-intellectual NOR anti-working class. It fully admires street-smart vigor and creativity while also embracing the love of more formal learning. In our era, a film like this is a bracing reminder that a fertile exchange is possible (and improving for all involved.)2. This is the kind of role that MAINSTREAM cinema used to provide actresses: smart, tough, edgy, sexy and eloquent.

wes-connors Eight professors compiling information for an encyclopedia provide refuge for sexy singer Barbara Stanwyck (as "Sugarpuss" O'Shea), who is hiding from police investigating gangster boyfriend Dana Andrews (as Joe Lilac). Tall, dark and handsome Gary Cooper (as Bertram "Potsie" Potts) stands out among the otherwise short, gray and older professors. You should be able to guess what happens between Mr. Cooper and Ms. Stanwyck. With so many character actors and ripe lines around, it's difficult to stand out - but there are some fun moments for the crowd. Singing for Stanwyck, Martha Tilton and drummer Gene Krupa contribute a rousing rendition of his "Drum Boogie" hit. Impressive sanitation worker Allen Jenkins is the one who prompts the professors to include a section on "slang" in their encyclopedia, allowing Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett to show off wit.****** Ball of Fire (12/02/41) Howard Hawks ~ Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Dana Andrews, Allen Jenkins