You won't be disappointed!

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

To me, this movie is perfection.

One of my all time favorites.

What a fun movie this is. Gary Cooper and seven other intellectuals are living together in a giant house and are hard at work creating an encyclopedia, a project which has taken them years, when it becomes apparent to Cooper that his knowledge of slang is out of date. He takes to the streets of New York, pen and paper in hand, eventually going to a nightclub. Enter Barbara Stanwyck, all a-glitter and performing "Drum Boogie" with Gene Krupa and his orchestra. Well, Marsha Tilton provided the voice-over, but Stanwyck and the orchestra are captivating, including a reprise using a matchbox and matches for drums, huddled around a table. Unbeknownst to Cooper, Stanwyck needs to hide from the police because of her involvement with a gangster (Dana Andrews), and ends up coming to his house. The casting and acting in this movie is wonderful, from top to bottom. Sparks begin to fly between Cooper and Stanwyck, at first because she's manipulating him into letting her stay, but eventually as his simple considerate nature begins to soften her cynical edges. The seven other professors make a charming group, and include Richard Haydn as Oddley and Henry Travers as Jerome, the latter of whom you'll easily recognize as Clarence from 'It's a Wonderful Life'. Things get complicated with the gangster decides to marry Stanwyck in order to invoke spousal privilege in investigations against him, but I won't spoil it further.There are so many nice little touches in the dialogue of this film: the slang they use (amped up because of Cooper's "research"), the innuendo, and the nerdy references. There is the sweetness of Cooper quoting Richard III when giving Stanwyck a ring: "Look, how this ring encompasseth finger; Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart. Wear both of them, for both of them are thine." There are fantastic moments, such as when as when the professors sing a couple of rounds of "Sweet Genevieve" while sitting around a table, as well as the look on Stanwyck's face in the scene where Cooper's realized he's being used and walks out in a dignified way, and she finishes his sentence, that she's a tramp. Then of course there's the chemistry between Stanwyck and Cooper. As Cooper tries to send her away he says "Make no mistake, I shall regret the absence of your keen mind. Unfortunately it is inseparable from an extremely disturbing body." Stanwyck replies by saying "I'm going to show you what yum-yum is. Here's yum. (big kiss) Here's the other yum. (big kiss)…" Both play their parts perfectly, and while the whole thing is improbable and predictable, the story-telling from Howard Hawks is taut, and it's a lovely romantic comedy. What a year 1941 was for Stanwyck, between this Oscar-nominated performance and 'The Lady Eve'. Great stuff!

A group of eight professors, each an expert in a different field, have been living under the same roof working on an encyclopedia project for nine years. The language expert, Bertram Potts (Gary Cooper), realizes that his time cooped up in the house has made him out of touch with the most current slang. So he heads back out into the world in order to gather more research and update his slang vocabulary. He soon meets sexy nightclub singer Sugarpuss O'Shea (Barbara Stanwyck), who has a colorful way with words. Realizing she is a one-woman slang dictionary, Bertram invites Sugarpuss to come stay with the professors while he finishes his research. She agrees, mostly because she needs a place to hide because her gangster boyfriend has been arrested and the police are after her to testify. Sugarpuss quickly takes a liking to the professors in this screwball comedy twist on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. A gem of a comedy with an outstanding cast. Barbara Stanwyck is at her best her with a role that seems tailor-made for her. I doubt any other actress from the period could have pulled this part off as well. The closest I can think of would be Ginger Rogers, who apparently turned down the role. This movie reunites Stanwyck with Gary Cooper, her costar from Meet John Doe, released earlier the same year. Cooper is great, as you might expect. He has wonderful chemistry with Stanwyck. The professors are all charming character actors most classic movie fans will know and love: Henry Travers, S.Z. Sakall, Oscar Homolka, Tully Marshall, Richard Haydn, Leonid Kinskey, and Aubrey Mather. In addition to these fine actors, there's good support from Dana Andrews, Allen Jenkins, and Dan Duryea. Just a marvelous cast.It's a very cute movie with heart and laughs. You can't go wrong with a Howard Hawks comedy from the '30s or '40s, especially one with a script by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder. If you're a fan of the director or stars, of course you'll love it. If you like snappy patter and slang from this period, I think this movie will become a favorite of yours.

This is a movie about 40's slang. Gary Cooper is an English professor, one of group of eight professors charged with compiling an encyclopedia and has come to realize that his compilation of contemporary slang is incomplete. From their cloistered abode he decides to go out among the proletariat and see how they talk. He recruits several candidates to meet in his study, and his recruitment efforts stop at Barbara Stanwyck, a nightclub singer named Sugarpuss O'Shea."Ball Of Fire", though somewhat dated, is great fun and part of it is recognizing all the old-fashioned slang expressions included in the script - a sparkling masterpiece written by the team of Chas. Brackett and Billy Wilder, who together wrote a slew of them. There are many comic characters in the cast, among them Richard Hadyn, S.Z. Sakall, Leonid Kinsky and Allen Jenkins.As you might expect, Barbara Stanwyck is the dynamic force that makes the picture go. It revolves around her, and also around Gary Cooper, but, as has been noted, he was limited and not as accomplished an actor as she was. But the contrast between her sassy, world-wise floozy and Cooper's nerdy bookworm is what makes this picture one of the best and it is a bridge between 30's screwball comedy and the more premeditated, cerebral brand of 40's comedy , exemplified by Preston Sturges's films.

I had heard so much about Ball of Fire, with people saying how wonderful it was. After finally seeing it, I really have nothing other than to echo these sentiments. The film looks wonderful, the costumes and settings look lovely and the cinematography doesn't look at all dated. The music is jaunty with an endearing touch of romanticism, the story is an updated version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and a scintillating one it is too, Wilder's direction is spot-on and the screenplay is witty and hysterically funny. I loved the performances too, Gary Cooper is gawky and very lovable and Barbara Stanwyk is alluring with a genuine sense of comic timing. Henry Travers, Richard Haydn and Dana Andrews are wonderful in support. Oh and fans of Stanwyk will get a treat from her performance of Drum Boogie with percussion king Gene Krupa. Overall, a great movie if there ever was one. 10/10 Bethany Cox