Rating: NR
Genre:
Comedy
Release Date: 05/22/2007
SubTitles: English/Espanol
Dubbed: English/Espanol
Sound: DD2/DD1
Run Time: 112 Minutes
Flags: Suitable for Children
Distributor/Studio: MGM
Ball of Fire is a delightful retelling (by
Billy Wilder and
Charles Brackett) of the "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" legend -- though strictly for grownups.
Gary Cooper is the youngest of eight bookish professors authoring an encyclopedia. They find a perfect "research associate" in the curvaceous form of stripteaser
Barbara Stanwyck, who (chastely) hides on the professors' domicile to escape her gangster boyfriend (
Dana Andrews). As
Stanwyck interprets various slang expression, she and the professors grow quite fond of one another; she brings out their sentimental sides, while they revive her essential decency. Naturally,
Cooper is the one most smitten, though he hides his true feelings until the inevitable clinch. When gangster
Andrews and his torpedo
Dan Duryea show up to claim
Stanwyck (
Andrews wants to marry her so she can't testify against him), the professors save the day and it is
Cooper who ends up with the beautiful
Stanwyck. For the record, two of the "ancient" professors are
Richard Haydn and
O.Z. Whitehead, still in their mid-thirties (the others are
S.Z. Sakall,
Tully Marshall,
Oscar Homolka,
Leonid Kinskey and
Aubrey Mather). Producer
Sam Goldwyn later remade
Ball of Fire as a
Danny Kaye musical,
A Song is Born (1948).
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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