SnoopyStyle Eight men have been trying to put together a new encyclopedia in NYC for the last 9 years. These men are know-it-all and Prof. Bertram Potts (Gary Cooper) is the youngest bookworm. After an encounter with a garbageman, Potts decides to go into the world to investigate the living world of modern slang. He meets saucy nightclub singer Sugarpuss O'Shea (Barbara Stanwyck) and gets pulled into the world of her mobster boyfriend Joe Lilac (Dana Andrews).Stanwyck's not a great dancer but she gets by with sass and attitude. That's her strength and most of this movie. In a romance, she could overpower the simple goodness of a Gary Cooper. That is the danger and at times, it comes off as such. Rooting interest varies as one waits for O'Shea to be good enough for Potts. This has plenty of quick turns of phrase from Billy Wilder and sure directing from Howard Hawks.

lasttimeisaw Howard Hawks' emblematic screwball comedy germinates from the wheeze of Billy Wilder when the latter was still in Germany, it is the quintessential coupling of the pedantic and the sultry, Gary Cooper plays Prof. Bertram Potts, a grammarian who is leading a group of eight scholars compiling and collating an encyclopedia, when a sultry nightclub performer Sugarpuss O'Shea (Stanwyck) takes shelter in their residence in NYC, who indeed is the gun moll of mob boss Joe Lilac (Andrews), the rest is written in the stone although it takes a tortuous route to reach its feel-good finish line. Less loquacious and rapid-fire than Howard's BRINGING UP BABY (1938), BALL OF FIRE points up the mine of vernacular in lieu of verbal rebuttal between the opposite sexes, it is during Prof. Potts' field trip to collect current lexicon of slang when he is swept off his feet by a bling-bling Sugarpuss, performing DRUM BOOGIE with Gene Krupa and his orchestra, accentuated by the bandleader's killing drum solo and an ingenious miniature encore with matches. They are two different kettles of fish, a stuffy bachelor vs. a pragmatic siren, a mismatch rarely can make their way out in real life, and that's what enthralls even today's audience, to watch something profoundly absurd but innocuously entertaining without its story being dumb-ed down or defamed by crass jokes pandering to the lowest common denominator is almost too good to be true.Also, the star appeal is in high voltage, Cooper is not just a too handsome specimen in a button- down suit, he also makes the shtick of doing everything with proprieties look effortless and goofy; an Oscar-nominated Stanwyck benefits from an earthier temperament and layers of inner conflicts deviled by her sapio-sexual conversion, is at her best when she retains her phlegm before impishly doling out her "yum yum" to a gawky virgin, which catches him unawares. Another fount of joy comes from the riff on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, as the other 7 professors grows an unanimous affinity to Sugarpuss, to the dismay of the stern housemaid Miss Bragg (Howard), and among them, the only widower is the botanist Prof. Oddly, Richard Haydn brings about a love-ably prissy mannerism that steals the limelight in the well-orchestrated crunch when the group has to outmaneuver Joe's two pistol-wielding henchmen.In short, considerably more accessible and more laid-back than BRINGING UP BABY, BALL OF FIRE excels in conflating different genre fodder (comedy, musical, gangster) into a helluva ride of a modern fairy-tale, and runs away with our affection on a moment's notice.

Edgar Allan Pooh . . . but BALL OF FIRE offers the next best thing as Gene Krupka "drums" with a pair of matchsticks! FIRE opens with an octet of time-traveling research scientists plopped down like a Bunch out of BRIGADOON, exploring New York City's Central Park for The Jogger's Real Killer. Appalled that the UNBORN Racist Putin Sock Puppet Rump wants to lynch THE USUA! SUSPECTS as he golfs with O.J., the eight professors work feverishly to conjure up an antidote to the COMING STORM of Hep Cat One Per Centers. Miss Totten might be a LADY, but Sugarpuss O'Shea brags about being a TRAMP. "Shove in your clutch!" she counsels a younger Rump years before any ACE$$ H0LLYWOOD TAPES existed (23:50). Resist the "nude shoulders" for the cold ones, Sugarpuss preemptively warns Rump against barging into rooms full of terrified teen "Beauty Pageanteers" in the buff on Moscow's KGB closed circuit TV channel (27:50). "Don't tell me the Jam Session has beat off without Baby," Sugarpuss cautions Rump about the Sticky Wicket seated along side him on the plane (31:10). Lawyers attest that "He gets more Bang out of you than anyone else he's known" in the Biblical Sense, trying to reach into the Future to redact that divorce court bit documenting marital sexual assault upon the Second Lady (48:05). If only the young Rump were a Cinema Buff, BALL OF FIRE could have wised him up before Push came to Shove!

jarrodmcdonald-1 Barbara Stanwyck first appears in a sizzling musical number with Gene Krupa at a nightclub visited by straight-laced professor Gary Cooper. From this point forward, we know that two different worlds have consented to collide.The real professor of this venture is the Dean of Improbable Comedy, Billy Wilder, who provides a story that has just as many curves in the road as Stanwyck does. However, there are almost too many points where the viewer must suspend disbelief in order to enjoy the proceedings. While the chemistry between the leads is undeniable, and the yum-yum scene a true classic, how is it that after receiving his first kiss we find Cooper's character suddenly talking marriage? Portraying him as a sweet innocent is one thing, but having him become all matrimonial moments later seems to change him from naïve to impulsive, and given his intelligence, it is not likely he would behave so hastily and foolishly, at least not for long.Later, when Stanwyck's Sugarpuss jilts Coop, he sulks considerably. He tells his colleagues that he does not want to be coddled by a bunch of psychological mumbo jumbo. He seems to have come to his senses. But, of course, this does not last, as anyone who has seen the film to its un-logical conclusion will tell you. That must have been some powerful yum-yum.