1941 Directed by Howard Hawks
A group of academics have spent years shut up in a house working on the definitive encyclopedia. When one of them discovers that his entry on slang is hopelessly outdated, he ventures into the wide world to learn about the evolving language. Here he meets Sugarpuss O’Shea, a nightclub singer, who’s on top of all the slang—and, it just so happens, needs a place to stay.
Gary Cooper Barbara Stanwyck Oskar Homolka Henry Travers S.Z. Sakall Tully Marshall Leonid Kinskey Richard Haydn Aubrey Mather Allen Jenkins Dana Andrews Dan Duryea Ralph Peters Kathleen Howard Charles Lane Charles Arnt Elisha Cook Jr. Mary Field Alan Rhein Eddie Foster Aldrich Bowker Addison Richards Kenneth Howell Tim Ryan Gene Krupa Pat West Tommy Ryan Will Lee George Barton Show All…
Ognista kula, Vuurbol, Szőke szélvész, Wirbelwind der Liebe, Professoren og korpigen, O kathigitis kai i gymni horeftria, Colpo di fulmine, Bola de fuego, Acht professoren en een meisje, Jään tänne yöksi, The Professor and the Burlesque Queen, Bola de foc, Die merkwürdige Zähmung der Gangsterbraut Sugarpuss, توپ آتش, Boule de feu, 볼 오브 파이어, Bola de Fogo, С огоньком, 火球
Absolutely fantastic. One of those screenplays where I start smiling about 20 minutes in as I fully “get” what’s gonna happen and it makes me all giddy inside. I love the professors so much, especially the slender, white-mustachioed one that looks like a Marx brother and talks like the Tootsie Pop Owl. Hoytoytoy!
a republican professor and a bad boy mob boss engaging in fisticuffs for the love of a woman? ok BRIDGET JONES
“looks like a giraffe and I love him.”
i see barbara stanwyck standing on books to kiss gary cooper in my dreams.
Family Guy taught a generation to do the fast talking forties guy voice but none of them come within spitting distance of the genuine article. Just incredibly funny. Barbara Stanwyck walks into a room and asks who decorated it, Lincoln’s assassin? I don’t even totally know what that means but it gave me the feeling I haven’t had in years of watching MST3K and laughing at the delivery of a joke I was about 70% of the way to getting. Absolutely beautiful movie. Loved watching all those benignly horny old academics firing Tommy guns.
gary cooper in a top hat studying fisticuffs from a book and making little punching movements with his hand while on his way to beat the shit out of a gangster for stealing barbara stanwyck away from him: just one singular jewel of a scene amongst this complete parure of a film.
I have no idea how to write about this movie, except to say that it’s magical. It’s so long and there is so much that doesn’t need to be there, but those are the moments that make us feel things; that make us care about these people.
It's full of tiny, generous touches — valuing old men and their feelings, embracing staid academics as human beings with full inner lives, letting Sugarpuss show weakness, giving Potts space to talk about his desire — that don’t exist in most of what Howard Hawks does. In the 10 of his films that I’ve seen, there’s often a cruelty to his comedies; his humor has a victim. Here, there’s no victim: there are just…
To some dear readers there may be an element of sacrilege in the following query, but what makes this a Howard Hawks film? This is a Billy Wilder film. The story originated with him and the script (from him and Charles Brackett) is filled with obvious Wilderisms, toying with the English language and sexual mores in his uniquely mischievous Viennese fashion. As one of the exchanges between professor and gangster goes:
'You don't mind if we talk, do you?'
'Just keep it funny'
And boy, does Wilder keep it funny.
The plot is a clever reworking of Snow White, with the heroine as pure as the driven slush and the seven dwarves replaced by seven frumpy professors plus one bookish…
I think one of the reasons we as modern audiences still find screwballs to be so irresistible is because they were primarily vehicles for the female star. His Girl Friday or The Philadelphia Story can certainly show off the comedic talents of Cary Grant, but it's ultimately Katherine Hepburn or Rosalind Russell who stick in our minds. Each of them has such a carefully honed image created by their respective studios (and, of course, themselves) of a certain type of female character - the charismatic debutante (either poised like in The Philadelphia Story or manic like in Bringing Up Baby) for the case of Hepburn, or the simultaneously frenzied and entrancing Carole Lombard, or the spunky independent Jean Arthur, or,…
Ball of Fire suffers from a bit too many geriatric antics and not enough screen time for Barbara Stanwyck. This undistinguished reimagining of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs introduces Stanwyck as loquacious burlesque babe Sugarpuss O’Shea, who shacks up with an octet of cerebral, cloistered academics who are nearly a decade deep into authoring an encyclopedia. On the lam, she submits herself to Professor Bertram Potts (a stilted Gary Cooper) for his research on current American slang in order to subvert a citywide manhunt.
The gangsters and cops play on the periphery of the story, much like Sugarpuss’ talents as a nightclub headliner, and we’re instead treated to a hearty serving of withered bachelors feebly attempting to flirt with…
