Ball of Fire (1941)

Sexy, wisecracking nightclub singer Sugarpuss O'Shea is a hot tomato who needs to be kept on ice: mobster boyfriend Joe Lilac is suspected of murder and Sugarpuss' testimony could put him away. Naive Professor Bertram Potts meets Miss O'Shea while researching an article on slang and in true romantic comedy fashion the two worlds collide. When Miss O'Shea hides out with Potts and his fellow professors, everyone learns something new: the professors how to cha-cha and Potts the meaning of "yum-yum"!

Keywords: 1940s, bachelor, backstage, breakfast-in-bed, broken-engagement, broken-heart, car-accident, central-park-manhattan-new-york-city, conga, contest

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Quotes:

Sugarpuss O'Shea: For instance, do you know what this means - "I'll get you on the Ameche"?::Professor Bertram Potts: No.::Sugarpuss O'Shea: 'Course you don't. An Ameche is the telephone, on account of he invented it.::Professor Bertram Potts: Oh, no, he didn't.::Sugarpuss O'Shea: Like, you know, in the movies.::Professor Bertram Potts: Well, I see what you mean. Very interesting. Make no mistake, I shall regret the absence of your keen mind; unfortunately, it is inseparable from an extremely disturbing body.

Joe Lilac: [as the professors draw guns on Joe and his men] What is this?::Prof. Oddly: I believe... I think it is known as an "up-stick".

Sugarpuss O'Shea: Richard ill. Who's Richard ill?::Professor Bertram Potts: Richard the third.

[Professor Magenbrush says Sugarpuss has a slight rosiness at the back of her throat]::Sugarpuss O'Shea: SLIGHT rosiness? It's as red as The Daily Worker and just as sore!

Sugarpuss O'Shea: [about Potts] Yes, I love 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. Love him because he doesn't know how to kiss, the jerk!

Professor Bertram Potts: Sugarpuss, uh, before you go, would you... would you, eh, yum me just once more?

Sugarpuss O'Shea: [Upon arriving late to Professor Potts's round-table discussion on slang, already in progress] Don't tell me the jive session has beat off without baby!

Duke Pastrami: [Giving Sugarpuss O'Shea a message from Joe Lilac] He sends ya' a love message. He says to tell ya' he gets more bang outta' you than any dame he ever knew.

Professor Bertram Potts: We're working under pressure. After nine years of effort, we are, as the race track enthusiast might say, in the home stretch. Three more years and our encyclopedia will be finished. Let's not bog down in the middle of the letter S.

Miss Totten: Father had just one reason for ever starting this unfortunate enterprise: vanity. He broke a blood vessel because he found his name was omitted from the Encyclopedia of Britannica, because thirty pages were devoted to Thomas Alva Edison, seventeen to Alexander Graham Bell, but not one line to Daniel S. Totten, the inventor of the electric toaster.