Ball of Fire

"That man talked a living language; I embalmed some dead phrases."

A group of professors in New York are dedicated to writing an encyclopedia that covers all human knowledge.  They live and work together, and their research is funded by Miss Totten (Mary Field).  She is getting impatient with their progress and threatens to cut their funding.  The youngest professor is Bertram Potts (Cooper), a grammarian, and is obsessed with mastering slang.

He takes a day off to observe regular people speaking and is entranced by performer Sugarpuss O'Shea (Stanwyck) and her quick wit.  O'Shea isn't interested in helping the professors, but she needs a place to hide from the police.  She is dating gangster Joe Lilace (Andrews) and the police want to question her involvement in his activities.  She moves in with the professors and turns everything upside down.


The script is based on a short story by Billy Wilder, which was based on the fairy tale of Snow White.  Wilder did not direct the film, but worked closely with director Howard Hawks.  This is the last film Wilder wrote that he did not also direct.  This film is considered one of the last great screwball comedies of the "Golden Age."

This film has a lot going for it: the script is strong and funny, and the cast is phenomenal.  This was the second on-screen pairing of Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck.  They previously starred in Meet in John Doe.  The rest of the main cast are well-known character actors.  Richard Haydn, who would later appear in The Sound of Music as Max, plays the oldest of the professors despite being younger than most of his co-stars.  Haydn also plays the most eccentric and entertaining of the professors.  The professors are well-known character actors who each get a moment to shine and some eccentricities.  Dana Andrews was a smart choice for the gangster.  Later in his character he excelled at playing noir detectives and is clearly in his element here.

In 1948 the plot was reimagined as a musical, A Song is Born, starring Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo, with Hawks as the director.  In 1951, it was turned into a TV film starring Franchot Tone and Wendy Barrie.

Stanwyck was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Joan Fontaine won for Suspicion).  The film was also nominated for Best Writing (Original Story), Best Sound Recording, and Best Music (Music Score of a Dramatic Picture).  The film was a success and is considered a classic (it was #92 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs list).

A fun and funny movie with a great cast, definitely worth checking out!

Ball of Fire (1941) 111 minutes

Director: Howard Hawks
Starring: Gary Cooper as Bertram Potts
Barbara Stanwyck as Sugarpuss O'Shea
Oskar Homolka as Professor Gurkakoff
Henry Travers as Professor Jerome
S.Z. Sakall as Professor Magenbruch
Tully Marshall as Professor Robinson
Leonid Kinskey as Professor Quintana
Richard Haydn as Professor Oddly
Aubrey Mather as Professor Peagram
Dana Andrews as Joe Lilac
Dan Duryea as Duke Pastrami
Ralph Peters as Asthma Anderson
Kathleen Howard as Miss Bragg