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''Ball of Fire'' is a 1941 American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks and starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. This Samuel Goldwyn Productions film (originally distributed by RKO) concerns a group of professors laboring to write an encyclopedia and their encounter with a nightclub performer who provides her own unique knowledge. The supporting cast includes Oskar Homolka, S. Z. Sakall, Henry Travers, Richard Haydn, Dana Andrews, and Dan Duryea. In 1948, the plot was recycled for a musical film, ''A Song Is Born'', this time starring Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo. The film is also known as ''The Professor and the Burlesque Queen''. ==Plot== A group of (mainly bachelor) professors have lived together for some years in a New York City residence, compiling an encyclopedia of all human knowledge. The youngest, Professor Bertram Potts (Gary Cooper), is a grammarian who is researching modern American slang. The professors are accustomed to working in relative seclusion at a leisurely pace with a prim housekeeper named Miss Bragg (Kathleen Howard) keeping watch over them. Their impatient financial backer Miss Totten (Mary Field) suddenly demands that they finish their work soon. Venturing out to do some independent research, Bertram becomes interested in the slang vocabulary of saucy nightclub performer "Sugarpuss" O'Shea (Barbara Stanwyck). She is reluctant to assist him in his research until she needs a place to hide from the police, who want to question her about her boyfriend, mob boss Joe Lilac (Dana Andrews). Sugarpuss takes refuge in the house where the professors live and work, despite Bertram's objections and their housekeeper's threat to leave because of her. The professors soon become enamored of her femininity, and she begins to grow fond of them. She teaches them to conga and demonstrates to Bertram the meaning of the phrase "yum yum" (kisses). She becomes attracted to Bertram, who reciprocates with a vengeance by proposing marriage to her. She accepts, but before they can do anything, she is taken away by Lilac's henchmen. Lilac also wants to marry her, but only because as his wife she cannot testify against him. The professors eventually outwit Lilac and his henchmen and rescue Sugarpuss. She decides she is not good enough for Bertram, but his forceful application of "yum yum" convinces her to change her mind. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ball of Fire」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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