SoftInloveRox Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Iseerphia All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Haven Kaycee It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

writers_reign Billy Wilder clearly had a penchant for fairy stories and having fashioned Cinderella into Midnight he turned his attention to Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs a couple of years later and came up with Ball Of Fire in which the seven dwarfs were compiling a dictionary of Slang. Ball of Fire appeared in 1941 and Howard Hawks remade it seven years later with the dwarfs now engaged in compiling a history of Jazz complete with musical examples. For reasons mostly unfathomable Benny Goodman was given a speaking part as one of the Professors whilst the actors are supplemented by the likes of Charlie Barnet, Louis Armstrong, Tommy Dorsey, Mel Powell, Lionel Hampton and Buck and Bubbles. Whilst light years short of Wilder's script this does have the merit of the real jazz musicians to compensate for the acting of Danny Kaye, Virginia Mayo and Steve Cochran, woefully inadequate replacements for Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck and Dana Andrews.

Robert J. Maxwell A decent Danny Kaye vehicle. The humor is delicate and the music is memorable. Kaye isn't as funny as Gary Cooper was in the original -- "Ball of Fire", also directed by Howard Hawks. I know that's hard to believe but the character of Professor Hobart Frisbee is supposed to be pawky, professionally precise, and socially clumsy. Kaye is his usual stuttering self, whereas Cooper WAS the character. And Virginia Mayo, delicious as she is, doesn't have the sassy talent of Barbara Stanwyk, who could throw away laugh lines and still get smiles. Mayo seems earnest as all get out.Still, nice technicolor photography, almost lurid. And the musicians do their thing, which is pretty good, in fact. How could they not? Tommy Dorsey, Satchmo, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Barnet, Mel Powell, and a supporting role for Benny Goodman. I don't know if you have to realize what a musical technician Goodman was to appreciate the scene in which, as a fuddy-duddy musicologist, he is invited to take a crack at playing swing music. I think there's a recording of his playing Mozart's clarinet quintet too. Many of those once-household names, I imagine, have already disappeared from popular consciousness. A good thing they didn't hire Charlie Parker or somebody. It wouldn't have a prayer of striking a resonant chord.

naprn7 Best Movie with History of Music and such incredible talent! Goodman, Golden Gate Quartet, Louis Armstrong, T. Dorsey, C. Barnett, Louis Belson (drummer), Mel Powell, Hampton.laughs, songs, hysterical characters like Monty and Joe with their accents and their slang..I have seen movie about 10 x and never tire of it!!we need to value this era with the intro of jazz, jump, jive, swing and re bop!Any student of Music should view this film to hear and appreciate the classic music styles and their introduction into our culture.

Obenghorn This is a pathetic remake of BALL OF FIRE (by the same director Hawks). There is nothing to recommend this film.1) A B&W director and cinematographer trying to work in Technicolor yields awful results. The transition period, when color was available but color artistry was not, produced some sad films. This was one. Unfortunately, Hawks and Gregg Toland were two of the greatest in B&W. 2) Danny Kaye does his usual mediocre shallow characterizations that he attempted in all his work. I have a feeling that somehow Kaye may have demanded Technicolor treatment as a condition of his involvement in this project. Anyone with knowledge on the politics of this should weigh in.