“I love him because he’s the kind of guy who gets drunk on a glass of buttermilk, and I love the way he blushes right up over his ears. I love him because he doesn’t know how to kiss, the jerk!”
So says Sugarpuss O’Shea in Ball of Fire, about Gary Cooper’s character, the stuffy professor. There’s sadness in her eyes as she speaks (or perhaps sadness is too tepid a word): the sadness that does not come from self-pity, but from acute self-awareness. He “gets drunk on a glass of buttermilk”. His innocence shames Sugarpuss. Yet she loves him. She loves his innocence. With all of this, we cannot forget that epithet at the end of the monologue: “the jerk”! Classic Stanwyck. She doesn’t go mushy when love comes knocking at her door. She gets angry. Being vulnerable makes her cranky. He doesn’t know how to kiss, the jerk! He has no business, the bad kisser, capturing her heart like he has! How dare he? But with all of that, she is declaring herself. The goodness of the writing shows in the specificity: Love is based on her man “getting drunk on a glass of buttermilk” (and isn’t that how Love works, often) – and the overall confidence of her acting, something that was never shaken. I know Stanwyck has done more dramatic scenes, but to me – that small monologue near the end of Ball of Fire is my favorite.
It’s her birthday today.
She is one of my favorite actresses.
Another classic scene from Ball of Fire, Stanwyck’s first entrance, and a glorious cameo from Gene Krupa and his orchestra.
love love love her!! my dvr has been working overtime today recording some of her lesser known movies on TCM. as soon as my husband gets home from work the kids are going to bed, we’re popping open a “jaunty” bottle of wine and celebrating miss barbara stanwycks b-day and will probely pulling an all-nighter watching these films of hers we’ve never seen.
enjoyed your post on wine terms yesterday. we live in sonoma so we are surrounded by wineries. this particular bottle we will be opening in honor of miss s tonight, has a “jaunty step” in its kick (i kid you not) the man at the winery told us :)
Jennchez – Oh, do tell – what Stanwyck films are you going to watch??
I recently saw Night Nurse and fell in love with it. But there’s so much of hers I still haven’t seen.
Laughing out loud at the “jaunty step” in your wine. HA!!!!
I recorded JEOPARDY after seeing the first five very intriguing minutes.
I love her so much, I even still love her in the corny BIG VALLEY (which introduced me to her work when I was a kid).
Tony – ha, that’s how I first encountered her too – Big Valley!
There’s still so much I haven’t seen. It’s horrible! She’s the best.
Sheila,
I had meant to comment on the video but became sidetracked (or lost consciousness or something). Nevertheless, a belated comment.
I’m a great fan of Anita O’Day, having ‘discovered’ her years ago when looking into and reading a bit about the Big Bands of the ‘40s. Anita may have broken the mold of sweet and demure that was the model for canaries in the early Big Band era. She had a short stint w Goodman’s BB but Benny apparently was hoping for sweet/demure and instead got brassy/brash – only my reading and possibly/probably way off base.
Anyway, I bring Anita up because I see Stanwyck as having taken Anita as her ‘canary’ model (‘Ball of Fire’ 1941 and Anita joined Gene Krupa’s BB in ’41).
Here’s Anita with Krupa ‘42; now I could be dead wrong on all of the speculation and it may all be a just a beautiful providentially orchestrated cosmic coincidence but when see Anita, I see Sugarpuss.
Sorry, my HTML skills have failed me. Here’s Anita ‘Sugarpuss’ O’Day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l_TiX4t12M&feature=related
Here’s the music (only) of O’Day/O’Shea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjIQy_ZIqBw&feature=related