I rented the Howard Hawks-directed movie Ball of Fire last night, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper - I had never seen it, and a bunch of you had recommended it to me (espeically in response to my Howard Hawks Woman piece) ... My new video store has it on the shelves, and I snatched it up.
I can't remember the last movie I found so unbelievably delightful - on every level. It's so FUNNY, but it's also tender, and sweet, and sexy ... The dialogue is beyond belief - espeically one prolonged sparring-sexy scene between Cooper and Stanwyck, which ends with them in a passionate clinch. She plays a show-girl who speaks almost completely in slang, and Cooper plays a sexually inexperienced grammarian who has enlisted her help in getting to know the slang terms of the day. There's one long scene they have in the study, when he admits his attraction (but in such a bumbling shy way) and she is putting the moves on him ... The scene goes on and on and on ... they are two virtuosos, at battle. I watched that scene twice in a row. It was so damn good.
Billy Wilder co-wrote the script, so it has that ... WIT, that Puckish naughty cleverness ... but then it also has some positively laugh-out-loud funny moments. What a human being Billy Wilder must have been. I so much appreciate his comedic outlook. His humorous making fun of the flaws and foibles of all of us.
I ADORED this movie. I love any movie that makes me laugh out loud.
But the movie doesn't sacrifice sentiment. When it gets tender, it's quite beautiful - quite moving ... I was particular moved by the kind of defeated and yet tearful way Stanwyck admits to someone else that she loves the stuffy professor. And the LINES she says to declare her love shows Billy Wilder's special brand of genius.
Stanwyck is sitting slumped in an armchair, she's got the glimmer of tears in her eyes ... she's a tough dame, wrapped up with the wrong crowd ... but you can tell she's falling in love with Cooper ... and to describe it, she says, "I'm in love with him because he gets drunk on a glass of buttermilk. I'm in love with him because he doesn't know how to kiss ..." (Then she kind of chokes up ... she can't go on anymore ... Finally she resumes:) "I'm in love with him."
"I'm in love with him because he gets drunk on a glass of buttermilk." God.
Gary Cooper is freakin' FANTASTIC, Barbara Stanwyck is just stunning, and gorgeous, and also so funny - she completely IS that girl - and I particularly adored the other 7 scholars (Gary Cooper plays one of an 8-man team who have been working on putting together an encyclopedia for 9 straight years). These 7 guys are character-actors you would totally recognize ... these old pros, these absolute comedic geniuses - able to create specific characters with a few broad strokes.
They are SO FUNNY.
Thank you so much, everyone who recommended it, for pointing it to me ... I'm kind of in a rush right now (errands, manicures, etc.) so I can't pontificate in my normal way ... but this is one of the nicest funniest sexiest movies I have ever seen. I enjoyed every single moment of it. And after it was done, I couldn't keep the smile off my face for a good 15 minutes.
The impulse to make people laugh - the impulse of comedians and comedic writers - I think is one of the noblest impulses in existence.
Posted by sheilaBarbara Stanwyck - mmmmmmmmmmmm
Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper are the kind of people they apparently don't make any more - in Hollywood or elsewhere. The kind of folks you can unabashedly admire. I haven't seen that movie but anything with the two of them in it is an automatic favourite with me...
Posted by: CW at October 3, 2004 8:50 PMBarbara Stanwyck, mmm indeed.
CW, you gotta check this one out. You'll love it.
Posted by: red at October 4, 2004 10:12 AMJust a side note: "Ball of Fire" was remade in 1948 under the title "A Song is Born", as a vehicle for Danny Kaye's particular gifts. Also directed by Hawks, with Virginia Mayo in the Stanwyck role, chiefly and delightfully notable for the inclusion of such musical luminaries as Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, and Charlie Barnett. It's not Cooper and Stanwyck, but an amusing romp in its own right.
Posted by: Kerry at October 4, 2004 10:45 AMWell,
As I was the last one to recommend Ball of Fire and with an allusion to the brilliance of the supporting cast, I feel like a short fat kid on the fringe of the crowd jumping up and down, waving my hand, and shouting "What about me?."
Well,
I don't actually feel that way, but sometimes when I start typing my short fat juvenile alter ego (dammit he's done it again) takes over.
Anyhow, glad you enjoyed the movie. I first saw it on late night television in the sixties or even earlier. Then when I saw it in a video store some years ago I snatched it off the shelf and have watched it two or three times since. There's always some business going on with the supporting cast that I haven't caught before.
Posted by: Steve Wilson at October 4, 2004 4:27 PMEr ... tons of people recommended it to me. I don't know first from last ... I thanked you ALL.
Posted by: red at October 4, 2004 4:35 PMSorry - I sounded a bit rude. Didn't mean to.
I can't remember every single comment and every single commenter - or who made what comment, or in what order... impossible. I get hundreds of them. Whoever you are, and whatever you said, was included in the "to those of you who recommended it". Rest assured.