ARCHIVAL 35mm PRINT

FILM FORUM'S CHRISTMAS WEEK CLASSIC
DECEMBER 25-31

FREE BUBBLY ON NEW YEAR'S EVE!
 

Howard Hawks’ BALL OF FIRE (1941), a classic screwball comedy starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck and written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, will be shown in an archival 35mm print at Film Forum for one week beginning on Christmas Day and playing through New Year’s Eve.
 

“Let's get ourselves a couple drinks, light the fire maybe, and you can start working on me right away…” cheerfully suggests Barbara Stanwyck’s hotcha stripper “Sugarpuss” O’Shea to Gary Cooper’s Professor Hiram Potts. Of course they’re just settling in for a research session for the slang section of the all-encompassing encyclopedia he and six other supremely unworldly professors having been slaving away at in their foundation-endowed brownstone for the last nine years. But what’s Stanwyck doing there? There’s no better place to hole up when you’re on the run from both the DA’s men and your own “boyfriend,” Dana Andrews, whose idea of sweet talk, according to henchman Dan Duryea, is “he gets more bang outta' you than any dame he ever knew.” (How did they get this stuff past the censor?)

Wilder and Brackett’s playful adaptation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (in-jokingly noted on a background movie marquee) has Stanwyck going on a wisecrack whirlwind and Cooper tossing off academic gobbledygook, as well as an almost painfully sincere declaration of love, with the great DP Gregg Toland (Citizen Kane) giving it all a surprisingly lustrous sheen — plus jazz legend Gene Krupa’s “Drum Boogie” solo… with matchsticks.

On Thursday, December 31, filmgoers are invited to “Spend New Year’s Eve with Stanwyck and Coop!” All attendees at the 7:30 and 9:45 shows will receive free bubbly in the Film Forum lobby following the screenings.
 

111 min | A Park Circus Release
Director: Howard Hawks | Screenplay: Billy Wilder & Charles Brackett
Music: Alfred Newman | Cinematography: Gregg Toland
With Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Dana Andrews, Dan Duryea
Producer: Samuel Goldwyn
 

Showtimes
DAILY (except SUN) 12:30   2:45   5:15   7:30   9:45
SUN 1:15   3:30   5:45   8:00