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Ball of Fire

1941

Howard Hawks

Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Oskar Homolka, Henry Travers ...

7.8

7,308

Romance. Comedy 8 Professors are in the 9th year of a 12 year encyclopedia writing project. The youngest is Bertram Potts who specializes in language and grammar. When Professor Potts discovers that his section on slang is outdated, he sets out to research the topic. Nightclub performer Sugarpuss O'Shea is engaged to gangster Joe Lilac. When she discovers that the police are after her, she must find a place to lay low. Then Potts meets Sugarpuss. He is ... [+]

	Media	Author	Review
		Bosley Crowther The New York Times	"A delightful comedy (...) The production is excellent, and Howard Hawks has kept the whole thing moving at accelerated pace for nigh two hours"
		Don Druker Chicago Reader	"A delight (...) Far superior to Hawks's 1948 remake, 'A Song Is Born'. "
		Variety	"Much of the dialog is rapid-fire slang, plenty labored, but frequently good for laughs. Casting is meticulously perfect to make every character a caricature of itself."
		Tom Milne Time Out	"Marvellous performance from Stanwyck (...) His handling of the sparkling Brackett-Wilder script and its subversions of 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' is pure joy."
		Tony Sloman Radio Times	"Scintillating and hysterically funny (...) Genius director Howard Hawks creates a minor comic masterpiece from the witty screenplay by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"
		Fernando F. Croce Slant	"The film’s optimistic integration of intellectual and physical impulses lends it a feeling of wholeness closer to Howard Hawks’s later, more serene films (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)"
		Charles Taylor Village Voice	"The picture is a treasure trove of Forties character actors."
		Time	"Cooper plays his Mr. Deeds role with the authority of long familiarity, and Miss Stanwyck (...) is equally at home in hers."

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