Ball of Fire

BALL OF FIRE opens with a group of eight mild-mannered professors who are hard at work compiling an encyclopedia. Work is dull but progressing well until language expert Bertram Potts (Gary Cooper) realizes his section on slang is outdated. For research he ventures into the outside world, where he encounters nightclub singer Sugarpuss O'Shea (Barbara Stanwyck), who, thanks to her mobster boyfriend, Joe Lilac (Dana Andrews), needs a place to hide out. The professors are only too happy to have a woman living among them, and the brassy singer teaches them more than slang, in the process livening up their academic lives with nylons and conga lines. Potts becomes infatuated with Sugarpuss, but when Joe wants her back, things get complicated. (official distributor synopsis)