Ball of Fire was the 25th highest-grossing film of 1942, taking in $2.2 million at the box office.
With the success of
Ball of Fire and
Sergeant York (1941), Gary Cooper ranked seventh at the box office for 1941.
Among actors announced for the cast who did not end up in
Ball of Fire were Phil Silvers and Miss America 1941 Rosemary La Planche.
Had Carole Lombard agreed to star in
Ball of Fire it might have saved her life. The film's New York premiere, attended by its stars, coincided with the bond tour during which Lombard's plane crashed, killing all on board.
To help audience members connect the seven elderly professors with the seven dwarfs from Walt Disney's movie, the publicity department posed a portrait of the seven actors seated in front of a poster for
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, with each in the same position as the dwarf he represented: S.Z. Sakall - Dopey; Leonid Kinskey - Sneezy; Richard Haydn - Bashful; Henry Travers - Sleepy; Aubrey Mather - Happy; Tully Marshall - Grumpy; and Oskar Homolka - Doc.
During the shootout with the police, Dan Duryea licks his thumb and rubs it on his gun sight before shooting, saying, "I saw this in a movie." The movie in question was
Sergeant York, in which Gary Cooper's Alvin York uses the same trick.
When Howard Hawks was later asked about the slower pace of
Ball of Fire compared to his earlier comedies such as
His Girl Friday (1940), he said, "Well, it was about pedantic people. When you've got professors saying lines, they can't speak 'em like crime reporters. So we naturally slowed up - couldn't do anything about it. Also, it was a little bit further from truth and a little more allegorical. It actually
was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - with the striptease dancer as Snow White. It didn't have the same reality as the other comedies and we couldn't make it go with the same speed." (from
Who the Devil Made It: Conversations With Legendary Film Directors by Peter Bogdanovich.
Director Howard Hawks had a habit of taking credit for other people's ideas. When Leonid Kinskey suggested the professors should sing the old college hymn "Gaudeamus Igitur," Hawks presented it to the company as his own idea. In later years, he would claim that he had suggested to Brackett and Wilder that the film was really a variation on the story of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."
The lines Cooper speaks to Stanwyck at the end of
Ball of Fire, beginning with "Look how this ring emcompasseth thy finger," are from Shakespeare's
Richard III.
After a week's engagement in Los Angeles in late 1941 to qualify for the Academy Awards®,
Ball of Fire opened at the Radio City Music Hall in New York.
When Goldwyn had first bought the story from Wilder, he had promised him a $2,500 bonus if the film were ever made. Once
Ball of Fire became a hit, Wilder called Goldwyn to ask for the bonus. At first Goldwyn denied having promised him the money. After all, there was nothing about it in Wilder's contract. As Wilder got more and more angry with Goldwyn, the producer finally relented and told him he could come by and pick up his check...for $1,500. Although Wilder and Goldwyn became friends in later years, they never worked together again.
FAMOUS QUOTES FROM BALL OF FIRE (1941)
"Once upon a time - in 1941 to be exact - there lived in a great, tall forest - called New York - eight men who were writing an encyclopedia. They were so wise they knew everything. The depth of the oceans, and what makes a glowworm glow, and what tune Nero fiddled while Rome was burning. But there was one thing about which they new very little - as we shall see..." -Opening title to
Ball of Fire
"You see, the word 'puss' means face, as for instance 'sourpuss.'...'Sugarpuss' implies a certain sweetness in her appearance." -- Gary Cooper, as Bertram Potts, explains to his fellow professors the nickname given Barbara Stanwyck, as Sugarpuss O'Shea
"Well, I got thinking it over, and pooh, I said to myself, who am I to give science the brush?" -- Stanwyck, as Sugarpuss O'Shea, explaining her reasons for helping Cooper, as Bertram Potts
"That is the kind of woman that makes whole civilizations topple," -- Kathleen Howard, as Miss Bragg, describing Stanwyck, as Sugarpuss
"Do you know what this means -- 'I'll get you on the Ameche?''
"No."
"'Course you don't. An Ameche is the telephone, on account of he invented it."
"Oh, no, he didn't."
"Like, you know, in the movies." -- Stanwyck, teaching Cooper, as Potts, about slang
"Make no mistake, I shall regret the absence of your keen mind; unfortunately, it is inseparable from an extremely disturbing body." -- Cooper, trying to give Stanwyck the kiss off
"I'm gonna show you what yum-yum is. Here's yum. Here's the other yum. And here's yum-yum." -- Stanwyck, teaching Cooper how to kiss
"Would you 'yum' me just once more?" -Cooper
"People like that just -- Well, you see, dust piles up on their hearts, and it took you to blow it away." -- Cooper, explaining Stanwyck's effect on the professors
"You've given us all a fine course in the theory and practice of being a sucker." -- Cooper, feeling betrayed by Stanwyck
"He can get drunk on buttermilk, blushes up to his ears and doesn't even know how to kiss, the jerk....He looks like a giraffe, and I love him." - Stanwyck, about Cooper
"I feel like yodeling." -- Cooper, when he realizes that Stanwyck loves him
"I think it is known as an upstick." -- Richard Haydn, as Professor Oddly
Compiled by Frank Miller
