Ball of Fire Rating: Release Date: 25 August, 1998 Retail Price: $24.98 Sorry, this product is not currently available. Cast: Gary Cooper Barbara Stanwyck Dana Andrews Barbara Cook Complete Cast (7 total)

Ball of Fire Reviews

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Beware of originals and their price!
I'm a collector of DVDs from Criterion to mediocre "original" Studio Productions (WB e.g.). This Taiwan-Copy of "Balls of Fire" is first rate quality, picture and sound and anything you can wish for in a remastered DVD. If you want THIS movie, get it at it's low price. If you are a snob or real freak, get it at its "English Original" price. If you don't know what I'm talking about, get something else. Well, I prefer the remake with Danny Kaye to this first Howard Hawks-movie, but then I prefer American Jazz to dated American slang. Gary Cooper against Danny Kaye? impossible to chose. "Ball of Fire" has more bite, "A Song is Born" too much schmalz, but then there is the music and Danny Kaye.
I have both of them, on DVD and VHS. Best of two worlds.

Snow White as a showgirl singing Drum Boogie?
Sure, why not? I'd buy this movie just for that opening extended version by Gene Krupa's band. Does Gene seem a little keyed up? I don't know if Barbara Stanwyck is actually singing. I have no idea how they came up with the title Ball of Fire. No matter. It is Stanwyck's second, excellent screwball comedy of 1941 with a slight edge to The Lady Eve. It is sexier & Henry Fonda is a bit better in his role than Gary Cooper was in his. Cooper had just finished Sergeant York, his masterpiece & his role as Prof. Bertram Potts was just average. It is Stanwyck's movie as it always is. She's Sugarpuss O'Shea, a hip, wise cracking working girl on the lam from her fiance & his mob. She hooks up with Prof. Potts to teach him some slang for his dictionary. She moves in with Potts & his six elderly collegues & teaches them a few things about life beyond their cloistered existence. So of course Sugarpuss & Bertram fall in love. In they end they outsmart the crooks. You know the end, it's alway the same. But its a pretty good movie. Barbara Stanwyck doesn't know how to make a bad one.

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