Colpo di fulmine

1941 may very well have been Gary Cooper's career year. His film performances that year are among his best, the Oscar winning Sergeant York, Frank Capra's classic Meet John Doe, and this sparking comedy Ball of Fire. However it was Barbara Stanwyck who snagged an Oscar nomination for this film with her portrayal of sassy nightclub singer Sugarpuss O'Shea. Stanwyck lost however to Joan Fontaine in Suspicion.

A whole lot of talent went into the making of this film besides the two leads. Howard Hawks worked from a script by Billy Wilder and his writing partner, Charles Brackett. And Hawks put together a superb list of supporting players including seven of our finest character actors to be Cooper's professorial colleagues, Henry Travers, Leonid Kinskey, Aubrey Mather, Oscar Homolka, S.Z. Sakall, Tully Marshall and making his film debut, Richard Haydn.

These eight cloistered academicians are working off a grant to create some kind of ultimate encyclopedia. Cooper's specialty is the English language. A garbageman played by Allen Jenkins awakens him to a whole generation of new slang terms he hasn't heard. Cooper ventures out into the world and meets a variety of people and hears a whole batch of new expressions. His wanderings take him to a nightclub where he hears Stanwyck singing with Gene Krupa's band.

Stanwyck's just filled with all the new hep jive talk, but she's also ducking a grand jury subpoena to testify against her boy friend, gangster Dana Andrews. She decides a good place to hide might just be the house where all these professors are quartered.

It's quite a mismatch, scholarly and shy Cooper and brazen Stanwyck, In fact Hawks modeled Cooper's Bertram Potts on the character Cary Grant played in Bringing Up Baby which Hawks also directed. Cooper was as successful as Grant in breaking his stereotype though he never quite got the physical comedy down the way Cary did.

Still Ball of Fire is a great big ball of amusement. I'm surprised there hasn't been a remake of this recently. Danny Kaye did a remake called A Song Is Born later in the decade with Kaye being a music professor instead. But I can see the possibilities of a remake here with this group of academicians putting together a Wikipedia like encyclopedia or even an ultimate search engine for the internet like Google.

This film (remade in 1948 as a musical with Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo with the title, "A Song Is Born") is a hilarious vehicle for Barbara Stanwyck, who was nominated for Best Actress for her performance here. Anyone who has only seen Ms. Stanwyck in film noir such as "Double Indemnity" or in television's Big Valley should watch this or "Christmas In Connecticut" to see a fine comedic talent at work. She blows Gary Cooper off the screen! Most Recommended.

Basically, this is a gangster version of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" Here "Snow White" is a night club singer faultlessly played by Barbara Stanwyck. The "evil witch" is the local police, out to haul her in because of tie-in to a gangster (Dana Andrews) The magic forest of course, is New York. The seven dwarfs are a group of introverted professors led by bookworm Gary Cooper.

The film ahs a wonderful screenplay by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett. (Sample dialog COP: How do you find a needle in a haystack? GANGSTER: Simple. Feed the hay to a horse, and X-Ray the horse.) Directed with zip by the great Howard Hawks.

How in hell have I never seen this film before or even been aware of it? How did I forget just how freaking hot Barbara Stanwyck was back in the day?Why can't Hollywood make movies this smart, funny, and good these days? Even though it's been displayed in other films like "Mr Deeds Goes to Town," how did Gary Cooper's comedic abilities surprise me in this one?

This is a very enjoyable film. It's got snappy, funny dialogue and while the premise requires suspension of belief it's not so far-fetched as to prevent enjoyment.

While there are film noir qualities it is more in line with the screwball comedies of the period. Big plus for featuring Gene Krupa and Roy Eldridge in the nightclub scene.

Highly recommended.

"Ball of Fire" is known as the last great pre-war comedy, and with good reason. It all begins when a group of egghead professors are writing an encyclopedia. Then, grammarian Bertram Potts (Gary Cooper) realizes that he doesn't know any modern slang. Frequenting the nightclubs, he meets dancer Katherine "Sugarpuss" O'Shea (Barbara Stanwyck), who has a connection to the mob. This leads all the characters on the most unexpected adventure.

I really liked the way that every one of the nerdy professors is tempted to correct every mistake made by the others. But the gags throughout the movie are really something. Hilarious.