Boule de feu

"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.

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.

Ball of Fire is a real 'screwball' comedy, and it being directed by Howard Hawks, who made arguably the best one of all (His Girl Friday), ups the stakes just a bit. Not only that, but it was one of Billy Wilder's first projects on a screenplay, and his sharp wit comes through in almost every scene that needs it. And more than that, when the movie needs to be romantic, without any frills, it really is. At the center of the craziness that becomes the story (mostly towards the end and early on and a little in the middle) is a story that we know is formulaic- that a woman who is already attached (if not quite yet hitched) to someone else falls into an unlikely situation with another man and the two suddenly become really close, the man first and then the woman- but its the chemistry between a sexy pre-Double Indemnity Barbara Stanwyck with conservative Gary Cooper.

If, ultimately, it doesn't have the machine-gun energy of His Girl Friday (then again, few movies do), it makes up for it with a fun premise that Hawks and Wilder ride out logically, as far as comedy premises can go. It's about seven professors and their leader professor, played by Cooper, who for years have been writing an encyclopedia and are coming close to the end... except for a snag - slang words. The old guys and intellectuals haven't a clue as to what words like "Boogie" and "sugar-puss" mean, until they get a few people off the street to tell them. That, and a nightclub singer (Stanwyck) on the run from the cops after she gets unwittingly (and unfairly) mixed up in a murder plot with her fiancée. So, she shacks up with Cooper and his fellow profs, and it becomes Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with the twist that the girl this time is a lot more wily (and tempting) while the men are... old professor types who know almost everything except the human heart.

But Hawks makes twist on his own premise as he goes along, too. We see the natural progression of the plot, of Cooper quickly falling in love with Stanwyck's advances (all fake at first just so she can stay at the house), and then little by little she falls for him too, or at least feels so guilty about what she's doing to see the old geezers as real people instead of obstacles. There are a few key scenes that break the mold of the comedic antics (some of which, like Stanwyck showing the old men how to dance is hilarious and memorable): one is the bachelor dinner between the professors, when the one professor, played by Richard Haydn, talks about his marriage from many years before, and it becomes genuinely tender and sincere, not played for laughs, certainly not when they're all singing the song Gienevive. The other scene is when Cooper walks into the wrong room (thinking it's a professor and not his future wife) and asks for advice about what to do, as he loves her and isn't sure about himself. It's all shot in dark, with a few specific lighting touches, and it's about perfect.

The ensemble is entertaining- from the old men with their various (sometimes interchangeable) personalities, to the film-noir knockoffs playing the henchmen of Joe Lilac- and there are many lines and moments that, upon a repeat viewing, should become even quotable. It could be said that it's slightly dated in some of its approach to tradition vs. the titillating, but it never loses its sense of humor, all the way up to the climax. Oh, and it also happens to feature one of the best nightclub music scenes in the movies, with Gene Krupa and his band doing "Drum Boogie", first in its usual form (a fantastic drum solo at the end), and then a variation on it with Krupa performing the song in a huddle of people with matchsticks on a matchbox. A small masterpiece of music in the middle of very good romantic comedy.

Wow, what a cast! Let's see, there's Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Richard Haydn, Oscar Homolka, Henry Travers, S.Z. Sakall, Tully Marshall, Dana Andrews, Allen Jenkins and more! Classic film fans know all these names.

What's more, it's a fun movie, fun to see and especially fun to hear. Stanwyck is her usual fascinating self, but in this movie it's the men - the seven old bachelors and the younger Cooper in the "club" - that are the most entertaining.

When you have directors and writers such as Howard Hawks and Billy Wilder behind the film, you know it's a winner.

Because the story dealt with a bunch of encyclopedia writers trying to find out the latest slang words, the dialog in here is really funny. The expressions of the day are dated and humorous and there are so many you can't count them all. Some are stupid; some are hilarious...which is what you get with most comedies anyway. Not every line hits the mark, but a lot do in this one.

Tack on some action and some romance and it's corny-but-cute film , entertaining all the way.