00:00Ball of Fire hit theaters late in 1941, becoming the hit that Sam Goldwyn had hoped for,
00:05finally paying off his investment in Gary Cooper.
00:08Also paid off pretty big for Billy Wilder.
00:10As part of his agreement with Goldwyn, Wilder, who was itching to direct in Hollywood,
00:15was allowed to watch Howard Hawks direct Ball of Fire.
00:18The next year, 1942, Wilder directed his first Hollywood film he had directed in Germany before he got here.
00:26That first Hollywood film was The Major and The Minor, with Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland.
00:31Wilder also formed an important personal connection with Barbara Stanwyck.
00:35She agreed to star in a movie Wilder made three years later, a movie that changed both of their careers,
00:42the film that reinvented the crime movie genre, Double Indemnity.
00:47Cooper and Wilder didn't team up again until they made the 1957 romantic comedy Love in the Afternoon,
00:54co-starring Audrey Hepburn.
00:55Cooper and Stanwyck had worked together before Ball of Fire in a movie released earlier the same year.
01:02In fact, it's the picture we have coming up.
01:05Stanwyck plays a newspaper columnist who makes Cooper famous with a fake story about a disillusioned everyman.
01:12From 1941, directed by Frank Capra, Meet John Doe.
01:16It's next on TCM.
01:20Next on TCM, Meet John Doe.
01:24Then Saratoga Trunk.
01:26And later, Today We Live.
01:29TCM says Cooper DM tonight.
01:32Good night.
01:32Good night.
