Review of Ball of Fire (1941) by Mloy X — 24 Sep 2011

With Howard Hawks directing a screenplay co-written by Billy Wilder, how can you go wrong? Ball of Fire offers one answer: hopelessly dated material. Gary Cooper is well cast as stiff, puritanical linguist who is one among eight experts in other areas of science & literature sequestered in a house together for nine years writing a new encyclopedia because the benefactor felt slighted he didn't get a mention in Britannica for inventing the the electric toaster. Yes, only in a Hawks or Frank Capra movie will you find this scenario! Into their sheltered lives storms Sugarpuss O'Shea (no, I did not make that up) upon the pretense of helping Cooper with his study of slang but who is really there to circumvent police interrogation at the request of her gangster boyfriend.

What struck me most during this movie is how much times have changed since 1941, staggeringly so. Most of the slang expressions introduced here have long since been extinct, the electric guitarist plays scratch rhythms in a big swing band, there is one brief shot of a non-white actor during the whole 2 hours in New York, Cooper proposes to a woman he's known for a week because "it's the next logical step" after having declared his love the evening before, and the sight of a woman's bare leg completely disrupts the scholarly function of the entire house. (Well, that last one might still apply depending upon whom the leg is attached.) I've seen & love many old movies but occasionally catch one that seems better left in the time capsule.

Barbara Stanwyck is indisputably terrific as the titular pyrotechnic display Sugarpuss, providing a consistent spark as she commandeers this collection of blubbering elderly bachelors. Fans will love watching her in this.