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One Sunday Afternoon (Play)

After a series of challenges, including opening on the day of the attempted assassination of President-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt, One Sunday Afternoon eventually became a hit, running for 322 performances, from Feb. 15 to November 1933. , first at the Little Theater in New York City and then at 48th Street Theater. Lloyd Nolan originated the role of Biff Grimes. ADD VERY BRIEF DESCRIPTION Written by James Hagan (1888-1947), the play continued to be a great success beyond its Broadway run. It was translated into Yiddish and retitled One Sabbath Afternoon. It inspired three films: a 1933 pre-code romantic drama starring Gary Cooper; Strawberry Blonde (1941), starring James Cagne y; and a Technicolor musical film, One Sunday Afternoon (1948) starring Dennis Morgan. and was adapted for television several times (see below).

Plot
The action in the play spans 30 years.

Concord Theatricals, which sells scripts, advertises the play with the following summary:

”The hero is Biff Grimes, a handsome and impetuous bully. Unwelcome at the homes of the village belles, he meets them on the park benches and plies them with his fascinations. For hours they sit beneath the trees with him, talking of the birds and the stars in pretty language. Grimes' favorite girl is won away from him by his enemy, Hugo Barnstead, and he nurses a grudge. He becomes a dentist (in the prologue and epilogue he is to be seen viciously pulling one of Hugo's teeth). At the end Grimes meets his lost love. Her charm has gone and ill nature has taken its place. From then on life becomes sweeter to Grimes, both in the affection of his wife and in the hominess of his life."

Original Broadway Cast
In order of appearance:


 * Sara Arms as Snappy's Girl Friend
 * Boris Batt as Waiter
 * Francesca Bruning as Amy Lind
 * Rita Collins as Mrs. Schutzendorf
 * Marion Frederic as Mrs. Schitzenmeyer
 * Percy Helton as Snappy Downer
 * Mary Holsman as Virginia Brush
 * Leo Hoyt as Otto
 * Rankin Mansfield as Hugo Barnstead
 * Maurice Mitchell as Lamplighter
 * William J. Nelson as Charlie Brown
 * Lloyd Nolan as Biff Grimes
 * Everett Ripley as a Rowdy
 * Ernst Robert as Mr. Schneider
 * Byron Shores as Matt Hughes
 * Fred Steinway as a Waiter
 * Karl Swenson as a Rowdy
 * Eeda Von Buelow as Mrs. Oberstatter
 * Janet Young as Mrs. Lind

History
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1933/09/17/105804150.html?pageNumber=159

Ups and downs of production, including opening on assassination attempt. Excerpt events.

PLAGIARISM SUIT. Find result. SEE PDFS

https://www.nytimes.com/1934/06/20/archives/plagiarism-action-by-rw-child-fails-judge-woolsey-awards-costs-to.html?searchResultPosition=28 JUDGE FINDS FOR HAGAN

Reception
Before it opening NYT announced it as a “melodrama” Day of opening a romantic drama-comedy Opening Postponed announced same day Closing at Little and reopening

The New York Times' critic Brooke Atkinson called it “a light and charming little fable” and “uncommonly refreshing.”

The play was translated into Yiddish by Jacob Fishberg and renamed One Sabbath Afternoon. It received high praise on January 17, 1939 from The New York Times in a review signed W.S, The author of that review praised the original in retrospect. MORE

The play was often recalled reviewers compared to the play, particularly the 1933 film, which opened while the play was still runn8ng. Reviewer compared 7nfavorably.

Adaptations
The play served as the basis for three films and several television productions.

The first film, One Sunday Afternoon (1933), stars Gary Cooper as Biff. A romantic drama, it covered a time span similar to the 30 years that pass in the play.

Director Raoul Walsh made two versions. The first, Strawberry Blonde (1941) with James Cagney as Biff, was a huge success. The second, a Technicolor  musical starring Dennis Morgan and called One Sunday Afternoon (1948), did not do as well. In both of those films, the time elapsed between Hugo's betrayal of Biff and his fateful arrival in Biff's office as a patient is much less. Walsh's pictures both end with Amy's announcement that she is pregnant.

As in the play, Biff hates Hugo for marrying Biff's dream girl, Virginia Brush, leaving him with second best, sweet devoted Amy.. (Virginia was never interested in Biff. Her friend Amy, a nurse, fell in love with Biff and they married. Biff spent two-to three years in jail and blames Hugo for it. . The reasons for his incarceration vary. In the 1933 film flashback, Hugo gives an impoverished Biff a job in the Barnstead family umbrella ? factory. Hugo asks him to spy on his fellow workers. Outraged, Biff refuses and Hugo fires him. Biff starts a fight and and accidentally shoots  the security guard in the leg with the officer's gun. In the two later films Hugo is a swindler who involves the trusting Biff in a scam that makes Hugo even richer and leaves Biff holding the bag  and (What is the deal in 1941?) and when a building collapses (1948).

As in the play, all three films use a flashback that begins with Hugo's emergency visit to Biff's dentist office.

In the 1933 film, Biff anesthetizes Hugo and after the flashback, as he friend Snappy looks on in horror, turns the oxygen off and the nitrogen up. Virginia jokes bitterly from her seat that Biff should put her husband out of his misery. She looks and talks like an aging, expensive prostitute. Biff comes to his sense, cranks on the oxygen and checks Hugo's breathing. After a pause he and Snappy are relieved to seenrelief that Hugo is alive. Biff pulls the tooth and revives his patient, telling him there will be no charge.

In the other films, Virginia has become a screaming, shrew, but she remains beautiful and is not a tramp.

Mordaunt Hall reviewed the film for The New York Times in September 1933, while the play was still running, and it suffered by comparison to the original: “...Hollywood loses no time in picturing a good play... One might venture that the studio chieftains have been a little too hasty in this case, for, although the shadow conception of "One Sunday Afternoon" is not without merit, it often fails in the dramatic impact given in the original, especially in the closing episodes.

Burgess Meredith made his television debut playing Biff on a Ford Theatre Hour (CBS) on May 16, 1949. Francesca Bruning reprised the role of Amy, which she originated. Hume Cronym played Hugo Barnstead and Augusta Roeland played “Barnstead's wife” (Virginia).

Broadway Television Theatre (WOR-TV, syndicated) on December 8, 1952, Jack Warden as Biff, Mimi Kelly as Amy, Gloria McGehee as Virginia Brush, Jimmy Sheridan as Hugo.

Ponds Theater (ABC) (Originally Kraft Television Theatre) on November 11, 1954, starring Frank Albertson as Biff, Valerie Cossart as Amy, Claudia Morgan as Virginia, John Shellie as Hugo. This production used different actors for the young characters.

Lux Video Theatre (CBS) broadcast live on January 31, 1957, adapted by Ed James, Starring Peter Lind Hayes as Hugo, his wife, Mary Healy, as Amy, Gordon MacRae as Biff, his wife Sheila MacRae as Virginia.

Check out

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1933/03/19/105120206.html?pageNumber=130 PENALIZING THE CLEAN DRAMA

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1933/09/17/105804150.html?pageNumber=159 ALL IN AN AFTERNOON

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1948/12/27/86763434.html?pageNumber=16  AT THE MAYFAIR 1948 FILM, MENTIONS OTHERS

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1933/02/16/99210324.html?pageNumber=23 ATKINSON'S FIRST REVIEW OF PLAY

https://www.nytimes.com/1941/02/22/archives/the-screen-james-cagney-in-a-nostalgic-comedy-of-the-1890s.html?searchResultPosition=15 REVIEW OF CAGNEY FILM

See Times pdfs