KnotMissPriceless Why so much hype?

Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

JohnHowardReid Producer Sam Goldwyn has really opened up the purse strings on this all-star musical comedy in which every move both in front of and behind the camera adds up to a glorious feast. Both Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck are in fine fettle, and they're supported by a wonderful array of our favorite character players. Even Elisha Cook, Jr. is on hand. And in addition to the character players like Oscar Homolka, Henry Travers and S.Z. Sakall, we find a number of rising stars in support spots including Dana Andrews as the chief villain and Dan Duryea as another mobster. As usual from Sam Goldwyn, production values are superb. Ball of Fire has a place in history as the last of Hollywood's famous pre-war screwball comedies. World War 2 put paid to this genre. Goldwyn's later attempt to remake the film as a musical for Danny Kaye, A Song Is Born (1948), was not successful. Incidentally, as some viewers have noted, the sound is low on the DVD in some of the earlier scenes, but it improves vastly once Gene Krupa makes his appearance.

utgard14 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.

SimonJack "Ball of Fire" opened in the U.S. on Dec. 2, 1941. Europe had been at war for more than a year, and in just five more days Japan would bomb Pearl Harbor, bringing the U.S. into the war. Hollywood made many comedies during the depression to help lift spirits; and now it was doing the same thing to help ease tensions and lift the spirits on the home front. This wonderful comedy has several big name stars, some music and rhythm by Gene Krupa and his band, and a great supporting cast. That includes some of the best supporting actors of the time. Several were foreign- born, all from nations at war. One can imagine the emotion they must have felt. And, how they may have viewed their profession as important for lifting the spirits of the Allies and the hopes of their people back home. The names of many characters are hilarious.Seven of the support cast are professors working with Gary Cooper who plays Prof. Potts. They include Oskar Homolka, born in Vienna, Austria, as Prof. Gurkakoff; S.Z. "Cuddles" Sakall from Budapest, Hungary, as Prof. Magenbruch; Leonid Kinskey from St. Petersburg, Russia, as Prof. Quintana; and three from England, including Richard Hadyn as Prof. Oddly, Henry Travers as Prof. Jerome and Aubrey Mather as Prof. Peagram. One was U.S.-born – Tully Marshall as Prof. Robinson.The film has several other big name actors. Frequent leading man Dana Andrews plays the boss of the bad guys, Joe Lilac. His gang includes Dan Duryea as Duke Pastrami and Ralph Peters as Asthma Anderson. Allen Jenkins is the garbage man. "Ball of Fire" received four Oscar nominations, including best actress for Barbara Stanwyck as Sugarpuss O'Shea. It is a very funny film, with much witty, clever dialog. But, this type of comedy may not be for everyone. Much of the humor develops around language and words. So, those who don't like language and fun with words aren't likely to get much out of this film. But all others should enjoy it immensely. Some of the slang words in the script were a far stretch even for the time of the movie. In a late scene, Duke Pastrami is talking to Sugarpuss: "Now meantime, lay low and stay close to the Ameche." Sugarpuss: "Okay! The what?" Pastrami: "The telephone." Later, she uses it as a slang question to Prof. Potts, whom she calls "Pottsy." When he asks what that is, she explains that it's the name of the inventor of the telephone. He interrupts to say that the inventor of the phone was Alexander …, but she interrupts to explain that Ameche played the inventor in the movie. That was a 1939 biopic with Don Ameche, Henry Fonda and Loretta Young. A nice little jab here at the intelligence of those Americans who "learn" their history from the movies. Here are some more funny lines and exchanges from the film. Sugarpuss picks up a book and says, "Oh, Greek philosophy. I've got a set like this with a radio inside." She turns to Potts and says, "Well, how do we start professor? You see, this is the first time anybody moved in on my brain."Potts: "Living in this house, cut off from the world, I've lost touch. And it's inexcusable. That man talked a living language (slang). I embalmed some dead phrases. 'Slang,' as the poet Carl Sandberg has said, 'is language which takes off its coat, spits on its hands and goes to work.'"Sugarpuss: "Who was that guy learned so much from watching an apple drop?" Prof. Gurkakoff: "Isaac Newton, 1642 to 1727, the law of gravity." Sugarpuss: "Yeah, that's him. And I want you to look at me as another apple, Professor Potts. Just another apple."Potts: "For four days we have been drifting, Miss O'Shea. The needle of the compass no longer points to the magnetic pole. It points, if I may say so, to your ankle. I shall regret the absence of your keen mind. Unfortunately, it is inseparable from an extremely distracting body."Sugarpuss: "Don't tell me the jive session has beat off without baby."Potts: "Miss O'Shea, the construction 'on account of because' outrages every grammatical law." Sugarpuss: "So what? I came on account of because I couldn't stop thinking about you after you left my dressing room. On account of because I thought you were big and cute and pretty."Prof. Magenbruch: "I thought you meant to leave us in protest, Miss Bragg." Miss Bragg: "A nurse does not quit her post when an epidemic reaches a crisis."Sugarpuss reads the inscription inside a ring: "Richard ill. Who's Richard ill?" Potts: "Richard the Third."Joe Lilac on the phone: "Where are you? We're not down here to enjoy ourselves. This is a wedding."Sugarpuss: "Eight squirrelly cherubs, right out of this world." Prof. Magenbruch: "Did you hear, Potts? I'm a squirrelly cherub?"Potts: "Now let's have it out. I made an ass of myself and I know it." Prof. Jerome: "Oh well, we all have." Potts: "Yes, but I was the lead donkey."Prof. Oddly, a widower the past 20 years, offers some courtship advice to Potts: "Being a botanist, I find an astonishing parallel between a woman's heart and the wind flower, or anemone nemorosa. Perhaps you know the plant, how it waits for the warm sunshine and soft winds before it unfolds its petals. Sensitive and delicate. One rough, impetuous bee can completely destroy the blooms."Prof. Magenbruch: "Did you … did you get the records?" Prof. Peagram: "Well, they were all out of 'Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar.' But I got 'Chicka Chicka Boom Boom' and 'Shoot the Sherbet to Me Herbert.'"

TheLittleSongbird 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