Ball of Fire

Ball of Fire (1941)

“I LOVE HIM because he doesn't know how to kiss—THE JERK!”

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 When one of them discovers that his entry on slang is hopelessly outdated, he ventures into the wide world to learn about the evolving language.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.

Date of release
1941-12-02
TMDB
7.4 / 10 (261)
Runtime
1h 51m
Genres
Comedy, Romance, Crime
Director
Howard Hawks

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Awards: 0 · Nominations: 4

Ball of Fire is a 1941 American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks and starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. The Samuel Goldwyn Productions film concerns a group of professors laboring to write an encyclopedia and their encounter with a nightclub performer who provides her own unique knowledge. The supporting cast includes Oscar Homolka, S. Z. Sakall, Henry Travers, Richard Haydn, Dana Andrews, and Dan Duryea.

Production

The script was written by Charles Brackett, Thomas Monroe, and Billy Wilder from a short story titled "From A to Z", which Wilder had created while he was still in Europe. Partly inspired by the fairy tale "Snow White", the professors were loosely based on the dwarfs from Walt Disney's animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

The role of Sugarpuss was offered to Ginger Rogers and Carole Lombard, but both turned it down. Lucille Ball was almost cast in the role until Gary Cooper recommended Stanwyck.

Wilder reveled in poking fun at those who took politics too seriously. At one point, Sugarpuss points to her sore throat and complains "Slight rosiness? It's as red as the Daily Worker [a left-wing newspaper] and just as sore."

Wilder also worked in a reference to Cooper's Oscar-winning performance in the title role of Hawks's 1941 film Sergeant York by having Dan Duryea's character Duke Pastrami say, "I saw me a movie last week" before licking his thumb and rubbing it on the sight of his gun, a technique Cooper's York uses to improve his marksmanship.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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