Ball of Fire

On Christmas day, I could be found at Film Forum laughing along with the rest of the audience at Howard Hawks’ Ball of Fire (1941). 

A screwball comedy based on Snow White and Seven Dwarfs, the film is set not in a forest but in New York City where eight professors live and work together in an old brownstone, writing an encyclopedia of human knowledge. They are on the letter “S” when the youngest professor, Bertram Potts (Gary Cooper), realizes that his research on slang is out of date. He roams the city looking for people to make up a research panel and winds up at a nightclub where Sugarpuss O’Shea (Barbara Stanwyck) is performing with the Gene Krupa Band. Potts is entranced and invites Sugarpuss to join his panel. At first she declines but changes her mind when she needs a place to hide from the DA who's looking for her in connection to her mobster boyfriend, Joe Lilac (Dana Andrews). She moves into the house with the professors and quickly changes their lives. She and Potts fall in love, and he proposes marriage. The only problem is that Joe wants her to marry him so she can’t testify against him in court. Everyone winds up in New Jersey where Potts fights Joe for the woman he loves.

The film’s leads are perfect in their roles: Barbara Stanwyck was a street-smart New Yorker in real life and looks gorgeous while Gary Cooper is especially attractive when he's in full fumbling nerd mode (which he plays so well). They are supported by some of Hollywood’s favourite character actors including S.Z. Sakall, Henry Travers, Richard Haydn, Leonid Kinskey, and Dan Duryea. There’s also a great musical performance by Gene Krupa of "Drum Boogie" including a scene where he uses a book of matches to play the drums. The comedy is balanced with some tender moments and the costumes are glorious (one of Stanwyck’s gowns literally shines). And then there is the language.

Screwball comedies are noted for their witty dialogue and this film delivers in spades thanks to a brilliant script by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett. In the film, Cooper quotes Carl Sandburg who said, "slang is language that takes off it coat, spits on its hands, and gets to work." In this film, the language is working overtime. The erudite words of the professors are juxtaposed with the slang-filled observations of working class people creating numerous comedic moments. 

Early in the film Potts realizes that his slang research is obsolete when a garbage collector comes into the house to ask the professors for some help with a “quizzola” he’s filling out for the chance to win $25. He asks them a question about how Cleopatra died. When they give him the answer, he expresses his thanks and tells them why it’s important:

Garbage Man: I could use a bundle of scratch right now on account of I met me a mouse last week.

Potts: Mouse?

Garbage Man: What a pair of gams. A little in, a little out, and a little more out...

Potts: I am still completely mystified.

Garbage Man: Well, with this dish on me hands and them giving away 25 smackaroos on that quizzola.

Potts: Smackaroos? What are smackaroos?

Garbage Man: A smackaroo is a...

Potts: No such word exists.

Garbage Man: Oh, it don't? A smackaroo is a dollar, pal.

Potts: Well, the accepted vulgarism for a dollar is a buck.

Garbage Man: The accepted vulgarism for a smackaroo is a dollar. That goes for a banger, a fish, a buck or a rug.

Potts: Well, what about the mouse?

Garbage Man: The mouse is the dish. That's what I need the moolah for.

Potts: Moolah?

Garbage Man: Yeah, the dough. We'll be stepping. Me and this smooch…I mean, the dish, I mean, the mouse. You know, hit the jiggles for a little rum boogie.

Potts: Please, please, not so fast.

Garbage Man: Brother, we're going to have some hoytoytoy.

Potts: Hoytoytoy?

Garbage Man: Yeah, and if you want that one explained, you go ask your papas.

Sugarpuss O’Shea’s language is just as colourful as the Garbage Man’s, and she’s better looking. Between her delivery and the gold dress that shows off her midriff and shapely legs, Potts doesn’t have a chance.

When he first meets Sugarpuss in her dressing room she tells him, “Okay, scrow, scram, scraw,” and he responds with delight, “The complete conjugation!”

Sugarpuss also gets some of the best lines. When she first enters the professors’ library she says, “Hey, who decorated this place, the mug who shot Lincoln?” And when trying to convince Potts that she’s getting sick and needs to stay over at the house, she asks him to check her throat.

Potts: There is possibly a slight rosiness in the laryngeal region.

Sugarpuss: Slight rosiness? It’s as red as the Daily Worker and just as sore.

When Potts attempts to kick her out of the house, he tells her, "Make no mistake, I shall regret the absence of your keen mind. Unfortunately, it is inseparable from an extremely disturbing body." She responds by playing on his sense of duty as a grammarian.

Sugarpuss: There's a lot of words we haven't caught up with. For instance, do you know what this means, "I'll get you on the Ameche"?

Potts: No.

Sugarpuss: Of course, you don't. An Ameche is the telephone. On account of he invented it.

Potts: Oh, no, he didn't.

Sugarpuss: You know, in the movies.

Potts: I see what you mean. Very interesting.

She finally convinces him to let her stay when she stands on three of Professor Gurkakoff’s reference books (Potts is very tall) and shows him what “yum yum” is. The kisses send Potts running out of the room to apply a cold compress to the back of his neck.

Like when Snow White went to live with the dwarfs, the other professors are enchanted by Sugarpuss and welcome her into their lives. They begin dressing smarter to impress her and instead of conducting research, they dance a conga. They also hang on her every word, trying to understand her world. When the professors turn the tables on the mobsters and pull guns on them, Professor Oddly (Richard Haydn) tells them, “I believe…I think it is known as an “up-stick.” Bless him.

Yet the influence isn’t one-sided. Sugarpuss comes to realize that not only does she deserve something better in her life but that she’s in love with Potts (or Pottsy as she calls him). He's the opposite of Joe, and she can't seem to believe that she's fallen for 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 because 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.”

The film was a hit with audiences and garnered six Academy Award nominations including one for Stanwyck for Best Actress. I think it's one of the best roles she ever played. So if you've never seen Ball of Fire, shove in your clutch and watch it now. Dig me?

Nothing Sacred

When the topic of screwball comedies comes up (one of my favourites), Carole Lombard is often mentioned as the queen of the genre. I wouldn't disagree with that title. She had the perfect mix of beauty, brains, and comedic timing needed to play a screwball heroine, a woman who could look seductive in one scene while laughing like a lunatic in another.

In Nothing Sacred (1937), produced by David O. Selznick and directed by William Wellman (yes, Wellman made a screwball comedy), Lombard gives a classic screwball performance in one of her most physical roles.

The film opens with shots of Rockefeller Center and Times Square with the words: “This is New York, Skyscraper Champion of the World...Where the Slickers and Know-It-Alls peddle gold bricks to each other...And where Truth, crushed to earth, rises again more phony than a glass eye...”

The Morning Star newspaper is hosting a benefit banquet to honour the Sultan of Marzipan (Troy Brown Jr.), who has offered to lend his support for a proposed Morning Star Temple (a museum of sorts). The only problem is, he’s not a sultan but Ernest Walker, a bootblack, which we quickly learn when his wife (an uncredited Hattie McDaniel) shows up with their four children. Reporter Wally Cook (Fredric March), who concocted the scheme, is quickly demoted to the obituary desk (located in a busy corridor).

He is soon begging his publisher, Oliver Stone (Walter Connolly), to give him a chance to redeem himself. Seeing an item about Hazel Flagg (Carole Lombard), a young Vermont woman dying of radium poisoning, he convinces Oliver that there’s a story there and the publisher relents. Wally promises Oliver the biggest story he’s ever seen or “You can put me back in short pants and make me the marbles editor.”

Arriving in Warsaw, Vermont, Wally has trouble finding Hazel; the townsfolk, including a shopkeeper played by Margaret Hamilton (the Wicked Witch of the East), are suspicious of newspapermen and refuse to speak to him. He finally tracks her down at the office of her doctor, Enoch Donner (Charles Winninger), who has just given her good news: his initial diagnosis was incorrect and she’s not going to die after all. Hazel is in tears, happy that she’s going to live but disappointed that instead of heading to New York to spend her final days she's going to be stuck in her small town. Wally believes she is upset because of her illness and before she can correct him, he offers to bring her to New York where the people will like her because she’s a “symbol of courage and heroism.” Seeing her chance to leave Warsaw, Hazel keeps mum about her news and agrees as long as Dr. Donner can come along.

Hazel’s arrival in New York is greeted with the headline “Doomed Girl Hailed Belle of New York.” She’s given a ticker tape parade and the key to the city (which she promptly tries to store down the front of her dress). She also goes to see the famous poet Ferdi Roassare (an uncredited Leonid Kinskey) who writes an ode to the dying girl. All the while Wally is by her side, taking her to see a wrestling match at Madison Square Garden, boating on the East River, and to the Casino Moderne. Noticing that her presence saddens those around her, Hazel starts feeling guilty about her ruse and gets drunk with hilarious consequences.

The next morning, suffering from a horrible hangover, Hazel tells Dr. Donner that she’s ruining Wally and when everyone finds out she’s a “good for nothing fake” they’ll blame him. Wally arrives with the news that he’s asked Dr. Emil Eggelhoffer (Sig Ruman) to see her in hopes of finding a cure. Not wanting to blow her story, Hazel decides to fake her own suicide; she leaves a note and then attempts to “jump” in the river (Dr. Donner is waiting nearby in a boat). Her plan goes awry though when Wally shows up to stop her. After they both wind up in the river, the drenched duo kiss behind a crate on the pier and agree to get married.

What follows is a ride back to the hotel courtesy of a fire engine (Hazel wears the fire chief’s hat and jacket) and the arrival of Dr. Eggelhoffer and his colleagues who soon assess that Hazel is not dying and give their findings to Oliver. He promptly informs Wally, labelling Hazel a “lying faking witch with the soul of an eel and the brain of a tarantula.” Wally doesn’t care because he’s in love with her and comes up with a plan: he taunts her into a fight so as to raise her temperature, making her appear ill. After they spar for a while, he knocks her out cold. Discovering Oliver hiding by the window, Wally wakes Hazel up and informs her that they’ve been found out. She promptly punches him in the jaw. Fed up with the lies, she confesses the truth to some waiting dignitaries who beg her to stay quite so they can save their own reputations.

The newspaper the next day announces that Hazel has left town and prints her farewell letter to New York in which she says that she’s had a good time but must face the end alone “like an elephant.” Soon afterwards a Mr. and Mrs. Cook are seen on board a ship bound for the tropics.

Nothing Sacred was filmed in Technicolor, a first for a screwball comedy and Lombard (it would be her only colour film). It’s great on one hand to see the actual colours of the costumes and sets but it’s hard not to think that it would have looked better in black and white. There's something about the time period that seems more suited to an absence of colour. One thing I did notice was that the scar on Lombard’s left cheek, which she received in a car accident as a teen, is noticeable in some scenes, something I don’t recall seeing in her black and white films. Another technical first is that it was the first time that montage and rear projection were used in a colour film.

The screenplay, written by Ben Hecht and adapted from the short story “Letter to the Editor” by James H. Street, is filled with sharp and witty dialogue. Apparently when Selznick refused to hire John Barrymore for a part that Hecht had written specifically for the actor, Hecht quit. A variety of writers were brought in to write additional dialogue and scenes including Budd Schulberg, Dorothy Parker, George S. Kaufman, and Ring Lardner Jr. In one scene, a group of children gather outside Hazel’s hotel room to serenade her with a song. A little ginger-haired boy for some reason has a squirrel in his pocket that escapes and runs into Hazel’s room and up her back. I couldn’t help but think this bizarre contribution must have come from a member of the Algonquin Round Table.

One of the funniest things about the film is how rude the characters are to each other, constantly telling people to shut up and hurling insults like fat-headed monkey, tittering imbecile, hophead, prize boob, king of the boobs, and snake brains. While Oliver calls Hazel plenty of names, newspapermen are treated even worse. The dislike of the press goes beyond just verbal abuse. When Wally arrives in Warsaw, he’s walking down a quiet street in the town when suddenly a little boy darts out and bites him on the leg. Yet it’s not just fakers and members of the press whose characters are called into question. The American pubic are also called out for their relentless pursuit of celebrity. In a film titled Nothing Sacred, no one gets a pass.

Screwball comedies are often known for their physically demanding scenes, something that Lombard excels at here. Whether she’s being pushed into the East River or passing out drunk at a nightclub, she does it with gusto and seems to be having a ball. In the most famous scene in the film, the fight between Wally and Hazel, Lombard flails around throwing punches and yelling while constantly falling down and getting kicked in the bottom by March until he finally punches her, and she takes her sweet time passing out. When she wakes and he explains his plan, she begs him “let me sock you, just once on the jaw” and does just that.

The role of Hazel Flagg seems tailor-made for Lombard who, in addition to being able to handle the physical challenges of the script, was a gifted comedian adept at the fast dialogue that Hecht was known for. And even when she's screaming or and carrying on in the film, she still manages to look beautiful (and if there were any doubts, the black and white newspaper images of her that pop up throughout the film are pure Hollywood glamour shots).

As for Frederic March, he is a fine actor who has some genuine good moments in the film, particularly when he goes to Vermont and in his interactions with his publisher. Yet there is something restrained about his performance as if he was never able to relax and give in to the insanity that a screwball comedy requires. 

Walter Connolly and Charles Winninger on the other hand seem perfectly at home in this genre, two strong character actors who grab the chance when they can to really own a scene. As for the slew of cameos by uncredited actors, it’s a whole lot of fun spotting them. 

A thrilling aspect of the film is the New York footage by cinematographer W. Howard Greene including shots of the Brooklyn Bridge and an aerial shot of the city when Hazel arrives in New York by plane. There's something fascinating about seeing Manhattan as it looked 80 years ago; in many ways it doesn't seem like it's changed at all. 

Carole Lombard considered Nothing Sacred to be one of her favourite films and while there are other screwball comedies that I like more, I love Lombard and her performance in this film.

Day 23: The Funniest Film You've Ever Seen

Rosiland Russell and Cary Grant try to get the story in His Girl Friday.

Day 23 of the 31 Day Film Challenge: The funniest film you've ever seen.

There are a lot of films that have made my laugh, many of which belong to my favourite comedy genre—the screwball comedy. Bringing Up Baby, Easy Living, Midnight, My Man Godrey, The Awful Truth, they are all so good and so funny that it's hard to pick just one but I'll go with Howard Hawks' My Girl Friday (1940). Hilarious and witty, with banter the likes of which you rarely hear and a great pairing of Cary Grant (king of the screwball comedy) and Rosiland Russell (who holds her own), it's one of the funniest films I've ever seen.

If you're interested, read my piece on His Girl Friday here and my piece on screwball comedies here. To find out more about the 31 Day Film Challenge, visit here.

Screwball Comedies

Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Today I'm guest blogging over at Quite Continental on a topic that I love: screwball comedies. Written by the stylish Mariah Kunkel, Quite Continental is one of my favourite blogs, filled with posts on fashion, vintage photographs, and some pretty brilliant gift guides (among other things). Every February sees the appearance of the Quite Continental Charm School, a "modern guide to creating a charmed life," and I'm honoured to be one of this year's contributors. So please be sure and check it out. 

His Girl Friday

As you can tell by the title of this blog, I love screwball comedies. And I especially love those that feature my beloved Cary Grant. So it’s no surprise that one of my favourites is Howard Hawks’ His Girl Friday. Exhibiting some of the fastest talk in film history, His Girl Friday is a biting and hysterical satire on the newspaper world and one of the best films of Hawks’ career.

In 1928 Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s play The Front Page entertained Broadway theatergoers with the story of Chicago newspapermen and the seedy world they inhabited. The play made a smooth transition to the silver screen in 1931, its dialogue well suited for the new sound medium. When Hawks suggested remaking the story in 1939, he was initially met with skepticism. What fresh approach could he take to the popular story?

Hawks soon found the answer. One evening, while doing a read through of the play, he asked an actress present to read the part of Hildy Johnson, one of the newspapermen. He was struck by the different nuances a woman brought to the role and decided that Hildy Johnson was going to be female. This change would allow him to introduce the battle of the sexes and enter the realm of the screwball comedy.

In His Girl Friday, Walter Burns (Cary Grant), the ruthless publisher of the Evening Sun newspaper, is greeted by his former wife and ace reporter, Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell), who informs him that she is getting married to an insurance salesman, Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy). Walter, still in love with Hildy, decides to thwart her plans and win her back. The upcoming execution of a convicted cop killer becomes Walter’s ruse to get Hildy to stay. Playing on her reporter’s instincts, Walter convinces her to wait long enough to get an interview with the murderer, Earl Williams (John Qualen), and prove that he was mentally unfit at the time of the crime. Hildy, torn between her yearning to lead a “normal” married life and her inability to ignore a story, relents and helps Walter. In the end, she turns her back on domesticity and embraces her true calling as a reporter.

The film opens with a great tracking shot of a bustling newsroom and the arrival of Hildy and Bruce. Upon entering her ex-husband’s office, Hildy immediately begins sparing with Walter, thus establishing the basis of their relationship—they are at their happiest when fighting. Hildy quickly admonishes Walter for interfering with their divorce.

Hildy: Hiring an airplane to write ‘Hildy, don’t be hasty, remember my dimple, Walter.’ It delayed our divorce by 20 minutes while the judge went out to watch it.

Walter: I don’t want to brag but I still have that dimple and in the same place.

Hildy may say she’s over Walter, but it is obvious to the audience that the chemistry between the two is still there.

Walter Burns as played by Cary Grant is perhaps the most dapper-looking publisher in film history (but then again, let's be honest. Grant was always the most dapper-looking anything that he played). With his well-groomed hair and perfect fitting suits, Walter is “the king of the universe” at the Sun. Charming and witty, he is never at rest. He is in motion throughout the film, his mind constantly churning, trying to solve endless problems. When Hildy announces her impending marriage, Walter immediately sets out to sabotage it. “Is there any way we can stop the 4:00 train for Albany from leaving town?” he asks his editor. “We could dynamite it,” is the reply. “Could we?” Burns wonders out loud. He spends the remainder of the movie, always one step ahead of Hildy, trying everything to win her back.

Grant is in top form, delivering his lines with devilish glee. In one scene, he adlibs “the last man to cross me was Archie Leach a week before he cut his throat.” Archie Leach, of course, was Grant’s birth name.

Rosalind Russell as Hildy Johnson shines in what is arguably the best female reporter role in film. Originally intended for Jean Arthur, it is hard today to think of anyone else in the part. Russell gives as good as she gets and manages to keep up the fast-paced banter with Grant.

All too aware of his true nature, Hildy spends most of the film on guard, trying to cut Walter off at the pass. Others might fall for his charm, but Hildy has too much history with him.

Bruce: He’s not the man for you. I can see that. But I sort of like him. He’s got a lot of charm.

Hildy: Well, he comes by it naturally. His grandfather was a snake.

The hapless Bruce Baldwin is caught between the two. Ralph Bellamy’s slow reaction to Walter and Hildy and his befuddled expressions makes him a perfect counterpart to Grant's urbane Walter. He even gave Grant one of his best adlibs in the film. When Walter sends Evangeline, one of the many people who do “favors” for him, out to get Bruce arrested, he answers her question of what Bruce looks like with “He looks like that fellow in the movies, you know, Ralph Bellamy.”

The film is rounded out with a stellar supporting cast, including the mole-like John Qualen as murder Earl Williams, Gene Lockhart as the stumbling sheriff, Abner Biberman as Walter’s henchman Louie, Billy Gilbert as the comical messenger Joe Pettigrew, and a  slew of strong supporting actors as the motley crew of reporters who fill the pressroom.

The film title is followed with a statement that the story depicted in this film is about “newsmen from long ago. Now, once upon a time…” Whether or not the news world of His Girl Friday is fictional, the warning announces to the audience that they are entering a different world, a cutthroat place where reporters are constantly trying to out best each other to get the scoop. In one scene, the reporters ask the sheriff to change the time of Williams’ hanging so they can make the city edition. And early in the film, the audience learns that Walter left Hildy on their wedding night to cover a fire; their honeymoon was spent in a coalmine covering a strike. In their world, the story always takes precedence.

His Girl Friday is perhaps best known for its rapid-fire dialogue delivered at a machinegun pace. The overlapping dialogue helps to amplify the chaos going on in the story. The actors often appear to spit out their words, as if in a race to finish first. In one scene, where Walter and Hildy try to outtalk each other, they sound like auctioneers. Hildy finally hits the table with her fist and shouts, “sold American.”

Many critics have debated exactly how fast the dialogue is, with some going so far as to time it. While it is true that the actors speak quickly, some of the speed is achieved by how the audio was recorded. Hawks did away with booms during the shooting, choosing to use multiple microphones instead. Unable to operate them at the same time, the sound engineer had to frantically cut back and forth between them, creating much of the overlapping dialogue. This allowed one actor’s pause to be filled with lines from another. Hawks also used quick cuts between scenes that add an element of speed. Hawks is often credited with being the first to use overlapping dialogue and whether or not the claim is true, he certainly mastered the technique in this film.

Hildy interviews Earl Williams.

His Girl Friday by its nature is a loud film—people shouting, ringing telephones, gun shots. So the film’s few quiet moments tend to be the most striking. One of these is the interview scene between Hildy and Williams. Opening with a dissolve, Hildy is sitting, dominant in the frame, speaking softly to Williams through the bars of his cell. The scene slows the film down to give the audience enough time to take a breath and also implies the seriousness of what Hildy is trying to do—save a man’s life. Another scene is when Molly, the woman who innocently befriended Williams, visits the pressroom only to be verbally abused by the reporters. After she departs in tears, the men remain silent, aware of their cruelty. The silence is only broken by a phone call for Hildy who greets the room with the condemnation “gentlemen of the press.” 

One of the issues addressed in the film is that of a woman’s role. Hildy is torn between wanting to be a “real woman” who stays at home and being a journalist. In the beginning, she appears set on the idea of becoming a housewife. As the film progresses, though, her claims of wanting to leave journalism behind sound less convincing. Caught up in the excitement of writing her career-making story, Hildy blurts out “I’m no suburban bridge player. I’m a newspaperman” to the waiting Bruce. She doesn’t realize until later, when the euphoria has started to wear off, that Bruce is gone for good.

Gentlemen of the Press.

Hildy has struggled to be “one of the boys” in the news world and not just a “Girl Friday.” Dressed in pinstripes, Hildy banters easily with the men in the pressroom, smoking and cracking jokes. Even with Walter, she is often treated like a newsman. In the beginning of the film, Walter waxes nostalgically about their marriage. When Hildy admonishes him, he insists she trapped him into marrying her, claiming he was “tight” the night he proposed. “If you’d been a gentleman, you’d have forgotten all about it,” he says. When Walter lights a cigarette, Hildy must ask not only for cigarette but also for a light. And when she goes to light a cigarette in the restaurant, Walter leans over and takes the match from her before she can light her own.

The climax of the film comes with Earl Williams' escape. Hildy, who is making her exit to catch the train to Albany with Bruce and his mother, is giving her farewells to the newspapermen (“don’t forget your pal Hildy Johnson”) when her speech is interrupted by the sound of gunfire. The men rush to the window while Hildy lingers by the door. The men soon run to the phones, and Hildy hesitates only until they leave before grabbing a phone and calling Walter. Her decision has sealed her fate. Soon after, when the two are arrested for hiding Williams in a desk in the pressroom, Hildy and Walter are handcuffed together, symbolizing their union.

The film ends with Walter and Hildy planning to remarry. The camera stays in the pressroom while the audience sees Walter and Hildy head out the door and down the stairs. Hawks, never one to be sentimental, doesn’t leave the audience with the vision of a rosy marriage. Hildy is left to carry her heavy typewriter while Walter is once again diverting their honeymoon to cover a story. For two newspapermen, there could be no better ending.