BALL OF FIRE (Samuel Goldwyn 1941) MGM Home Video

Memorably to have reincarnated Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as a slinky tale about an urban sexpot (think Walt Disney meets Tex Avery), screenwriter, Billy Wilder’s intercontinental verve for sin in soft focus gets played to the hilt in Howard Hawks’ Ball of Fire (1941). In this one, White’s as pure as the driven snow – only she drifted, out of the country and into the town, a swing band princess whose Prince Charming is as unwittingly obtuse as he proves handsome. Ball of Fire is a cleverly plotted screwball, with Snow White, rechristened as Sugarpuss O’Shea, and played with sass and venom by an attractive Barbara Stanwyck, who performs the Drum Boogie to great appeal.  In this comedy of errors, Gary Cooper emerges as a sort of hapless derivative of the congenial fop he played in Mr. Deeds Goes To Town (1936). Here, Cooper is university professor, Bertram Potts who is in the ninth year of his twelve-year encyclopedia authorship project. Potts specialty is language and grammar. Imagine his dismay then, when he discovers that his section on American slang is hopelessly out of date. To rectify the situation, Potts decides to immerse himself in vernacular of the every day, landing in one of New York’s hot spot nightclubs where the star attraction just happens to be the sultry Sugarpuss O’Shea.

Sparks fly as Potts, in an attempt to get to know his craft more carefully, clumsily becomes entangled in a gangster subplot after he learns Sugarpuss is engaged to crime kingpin, Joe Lilac (Dana Andrews). Warned by Joe’s associate, Duke Pastrami (Dan Duryea) to lay low until the heat is off, Sugarpuss instead decides to hide out at the university where she is gradually befriended by the ensemble faculty. The plot thickens as Potts begins to romantically fall for his covert guest, and she for him – resulting in a marriage proposal and memorable gun-shooting showdown between the academics and the mob. Wilder’s writing is slick and stylish – a warm and fuzzy cornucopia of misdirection with lots of Wilder’s trademarked witty banter and sight gags to pad out the story. These have remained perennially fresh ever since. Apart from her performance in The Lady Eve (1941) Stanwyck has never been quite so devilishly playful. Her upright, forthright, sly and seductive woman of the world is the ideal romantic foil for Coop’s clean-cut bookworm, whose initial interest in Sugarpuss is purely scholastic. In the end, Ball of Fire ignites the screen with its low-down tale of a hot-to-trot gal/pal who can burn up the celluloid and the scenery into a frenzied and fiery farce.

Unfortunately, there is not much to chuckle over in MGM/Fox’s DVD incarnation. MGM has long since inherited the Samuel Goldwyn library of classic films from HBO Home Video. Yet only a handful have made the transition to DVD via the MGM label – a travesty that has deprived viewers of virtually all of Danny Kaye’s classic performances for Goldwyn. The B&W image herein is quite soft. Though the gray scale can be nicely represented, contrast appears to have been boosted, with a considerable loss of fine details in the mid-register. However, the most disappointing aspect of this transfer are its digital anomalies, including shimmering of fine details and plenty of edge enhancement. The audio is represented as ‘re-channeled’ stereo and sounds predictably hollow. Mercifully, the original mono is also included and is the preferred choice. There are NO extras. Bottom line: Ball of Fire is a riotous comedy, deserving of far better than this. Let’s hope it receives its due someday.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

4

VIDEO/AUDIO

2.5

EXTRAS

0