Ball of Fire (1941)

This was a very cute romantic comedy. Bertram Potts (Gary Cooper) is a professor specializing in grammer. For the last several years he has been working with 7 other scholars on an encyclopedia for the Totten Foundation. He is working on the slang entry when he realizes that he knows nothing about his subject. That is when he decides to go out into the real world and learn the lingo of the day. He ends up in a club where a beautiful young woman named Sugarpuss O'Shea (Barbara Stanwyck)is the star. He decides that she must join his roundtable discussion and goes into her dressing room to invite her. This is when we learn that she is the girlfriend of Joe Lilac (Dana Andrews), a gangster who is wanted by the police for murder. Joe's thugs decide she needs to hide out and she knows the perfect place - the foundation with the 8 professors! However, things get very complicated when Bertram and Sugarpuss fall in love.

I really enjoyed this little gem. Cooper and Stanwyck had a wonderful chemistry. It was nice to see the out of their usual dramatic element. All the actors who portrayed the professors were terrific. There was a remake made in 1948 called A Song is Born starring Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo. However, I think this original is worth seeing first.