Directed by:
Howard HawksCinematography:
Gregg TolandComposer:
Alfred NewmanCast:
Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Oskar Homolka, Henry Travers, S.Z. Sakall, Tully Marshall, Richard Haydn, Aubrey Mather, Allen Jenkins, Dana Andrews, Dan Duryea (more)Plots(1)
BALL OF FIRE opens with a group of eight mild-mannered professors who are hard at work compiling an encyclopedia. Work is dull but progressing well until language expert Bertram Potts (Gary Cooper) realizes his section on slang is outdated. For research he ventures into the outside world, where he encounters nightclub singer Sugarpuss O'Shea (Barbara Stanwyck), who, thanks to her mobster boyfriend, Joe Lilac (Dana Andrews), needs a place to hide out. The professors are only too happy to have a woman living among them, and the brassy singer teaches them more than slang, in the process livening up their academic lives with nylons and conga lines. Potts becomes infatuated with Sugarpuss, but when Joe wants her back, things get complicated. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Cast
Pat Flaherty
USA
Best movies:
The Great Dictator (1940)
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Bert Stevens
USA
Best movies:
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Will Lee
Best movies:
Ball of Fire (1941)
Little Fugitive (1953)
Playing for Time (1980) (TV movie)
Mary Field
USA
Best movies:
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
The Three Faces of Eve (1957)
You Were Never Lovelier (1942)
Russell Wade
USA
Best movies:
Ball of Fire (1941)
Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940)
Vivacious Lady (1938)
Chalky Williams
USA
Best movies:
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
East of Eden (1955)
Leonid Kinskey
Russia
Best movies:
Casablanca (1942)
The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939)
The Talk of the Town (1942)
Otto Hoffman
USA
Best movies:
Texas (1941)
Ball of Fire (1941)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
Eddy Chandler
USA
Best movies:
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
The Roaring Twenties (1939)
Eddie Foster
Russian Empire
Best movies:
Miracle of Fatima (1952)
The General (1926)
White Heat (1949)
Edward Clark
Russia
Best movies:
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
East of Eden (1955)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Pat West
USA
Best movies:
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Ball of Fire (1941)
His Girl Friday (1940)
Francis Sayles
USA
Best movies:
Citizen Kane (1941)
Ball of Fire (1941)
Union Pacific (1939)
Ethelreda Leopold
USA
Best movies:
The Great Dictator (1940)
All About Eve (1950)
Hellzapoppin' (1941)
Aldrich Bowker
USA
Best movies:
Love Crazy (1941)
Shadow of the Thin Man (1941)
Ball of Fire (1941)