Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck
Written by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder.
Directed by Howard Hawks.
“I’m gonna teach you what ‘yum-yum’ is.”
And teach him she most certainly does, even if he is the esteemed professor, and she but a burlesque dancer.
"That,” one observer warns, “is the kind of woman that makes whole civilizations topple."
True enough. Sugarpuss O’Shea is indeed a regular “ball of fire,” and her serendipitous roll into the mighty dry world of several stuffy academics sets quite a few things blazing, and toppling. But is Sugar herself susceptible to some sparks?
Sugar’s the girlfriend of gangster Joe Lilac, who’s bucking to make Public Enemy No. 1. Cops are closing in, though, and Lilac needs some place to stash his doll so she can’t be compelled to testify against him. And lo, here comes English professor Bertram Potts – whose search for better resources on contemporary slang has led him into the nightclub where Sugar’s tart tongue and glorious gams reign supreme.
Sugar takes her cue, and moves in fast on Potts and his fellow professors. “Root, zoot, and cute – and solid to boot” (in the words of one admirer), she quickly wins over Potts’ elderly colleagues, whose long-dormant adrenalins are excited by her sassy, comely presence. Potts is slower on the uptake (all Potts are), but even he has succumbed to her lively charms by the time Lilac summons Sugar to join him … suggesting she can slip through the cops’ dragnet, using the professors as camouflage.
What Lilac doesn’t bank on is the possibility that Potts and the profs have a few charms of their own (all Potts do). Ball Of Fire may be the first movie in which the heroine confesses her attraction in terms of all the qualities she despises:
“I love him. I love those hick shirts he wears with the boiled cuffs and the way he always has his vest buttoned wrong. Looks like a giraffe, and I love him. I love him ‘cuz he’s the kind of a guy that 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!”
Things build to a delightful climax, with the eggheads scrambling to outwit the mugs with guns. By the time it’s over, Potts is far from the only one who doesn’t quite know what hit him.
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