Ball of Fire
What a great comedy! Bravo! Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot) delivers again. Eight stuffy, socially-handicapped, sexless professors live together on a fellowship to write an encyclopedia. The grammarian (by far the youngest and handsomest) is working on an article about American slang, only to discover that he's hopelessly out of touch with the modern parlance. So to remedy, he seeks out various nefarious characters adept at slang, including nightclub singer and gangster girlfriend Sugarpuss O'Shay.
Then, basically, we get Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
The grammarian falls for Sugarpuss - a geeky schoolboy's touching first love - and yada yada yada, the gnomish little professors have to face off with tough gangsters in order to save the girl! As a future academic, I found this premise especially delightful. The idea of my own nerdy colleagues doing something that exciting...oh, it's too much.
Two great quotes; the first of these I should have known, as an English major, but I didn't. Who says you can't learn anything from TV?
"Look how my ring encompasseth thy finger,
even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart:
wear both of them, for both of them are thine."
- Richard III, Act 1, Scene 2
In Ball of Fire, Professor Potts wanted this engraved on the ring he gives to Sugarpuss, but it doesn't all fit, so the engraving just says "Richard III" and he explains the rest to her. Isn't that sweet?
The second quote I can't seem to find in writing. Basically it's one of the professors - the widower, the only one among the 8 who's ever been married - trying to give Potts lessons in love on the eve of the wedding. He starts talking about how his own wife loved the anemone, and he spent his whole honeymoon watching her paint anemones in watercolor. Potts starts freaking out because he wants to make love on his honeymoon, not watch anemones. Anyways, the gist of it is, whenever the widower professor felt they needed an experienced perspective on love, he'd start declaiming pompously, "The anemone nemorosa..."
Then, basically, we get Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
The grammarian falls for Sugarpuss - a geeky schoolboy's touching first love - and yada yada yada, the gnomish little professors have to face off with tough gangsters in order to save the girl! As a future academic, I found this premise especially delightful. The idea of my own nerdy colleagues doing something that exciting...oh, it's too much.
Two great quotes; the first of these I should have known, as an English major, but I didn't. Who says you can't learn anything from TV?
"Look how my ring encompasseth thy finger,
even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart:
wear both of them, for both of them are thine."
- Richard III, Act 1, Scene 2
In Ball of Fire, Professor Potts wanted this engraved on the ring he gives to Sugarpuss, but it doesn't all fit, so the engraving just says "Richard III" and he explains the rest to her. Isn't that sweet?
The second quote I can't seem to find in writing. Basically it's one of the professors - the widower, the only one among the 8 who's ever been married - trying to give Potts lessons in love on the eve of the wedding. He starts talking about how his own wife loved the anemone, and he spent his whole honeymoon watching her paint anemones in watercolor. Potts starts freaking out because he wants to make love on his honeymoon, not watch anemones. Anyways, the gist of it is, whenever the widower professor felt they needed an experienced perspective on love, he'd start declaiming pompously, "The anemone nemorosa..."
posted by Rex at 5:17 PM
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