I could watch Ball of Fire, starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck every day and not get tired of it. I think I might rent it tonight. I am embarrassed. I am afraid the video-clerk will judge me. Again? Didn't she just rent this one??
This is similar to the Notorious frenzy I went through a while back. I finally just bought a damn copy of Notorious because it was getting too shameful to rent it every other day.
I must succumb, shame or no shame.
I have to see Ball of Fire again.
It ALWAYS is funny to me, no matter how many times I have seen it.
-- "14 watercolors ..." (said by one of the old professors in a tone of slow bewilderment)
-- A knock comes at the door. The professors flutter about. "It's 2 in the morning! Who could that be!" And Henry Travers (better known as "Clarence" in It's a Wonderful Life) - who plays one of the professors - interjects: "Oh, that might be the statistics on San Salvadoran saltpeter."
It is such a RIDICULOUS line, and he says it SO SERIOUSLY - I guffaw every time I see it. I can feel the intelligent wit of Billy Wilder (who wrote the screenplay) sparkling through that. "Okay, so what will this professor be studying ... that will make this moment funny ..." Ah yes, of course, he is waiting for the statistics on Sal Salvadoran saltpeter.
-- Barbara Stanwyck is deliciously good.
-- And a bumbling cerebral Gary Cooper is BEYOND sexy. Like ... he's so sexy that it is almost not fair. The cliche of the big hunky guy playing a repressed geek (Cary Grant trademarked this - but Cooper ain't no slouch at it) When he asks her, almost inaudibly, if she could "yum" him one more time... He's too shy to even say "kiss". I mean, I find him disturbingly sexy.
It's ridiculous.
And so enjoyable.
-- Help.
Posted by sheila