Ball of Fire

Ball of Fire

Directed by Howard Hawks. 111 mins. (1941)

Gary Cooper – Professor Bertram Potts

A shy linguistics professor, secluded with a team of fellow scholars compiling an encyclopedia, ventures into the modern world to research contemporary slang and unexpectedly falls under the spell of a streetwise nightclub singer hiding from the law.

Also starring Barbara Stanwyck, Oskar Homolka, Henry Travers, Richard Haydn, and Dana Andrews.

Written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett and inspired by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the film pairs Cooper’s naïve academic with Stanwyck’s fast-talking performer in one of Hollywood’s most celebrated screwball comedies. The writers famously gathered authentic slang by observing teenagers, burlesque performers, and racetrack crowds around Los Angeles. The film received four Academy Award nominations.

MARIA’S NOTES

This film is well described by delighted critics as a screwball comedy. It was originally titled The Professor and the Burlesque Queen. It gave my father the opportunity to stretch his “comedic chops” in his own subtle ways. He was happy to be working again, after the film Meet John Doe, with his old family friend and co-star Barbara Stanwyck who earned an Oscar nomination for her role as an exotic dancer named Sugar Puss O’Shea. Gary Cooper plays an English professor upgrading encyclopedias with his friends when some gangsters come into the plot and wonderful laughs ensue throughout the movie. I had never seen this on a big screen until the Gary Cooper Film Festival hosted by Southampton Playhouse, and the experience was wonderful.

Maria Cooper Janis