One Sunday Afternoon

One Sunday Afternoon (1933), a play by James S. Hagan. [Little Theatre, 322 perf.] When the dentist Biff Grimes ( Lloyd Nolan) is asked to perform an emergency extraction for Hugo Barnstead ( Rankin Mansfield), he plans to kill him with an overdose of gas because years before Barnstead had framed Grimes and sent him to prison. To make matters worse, Barnstead had then run off with Grimes's attractive girlfriend, Virginia Brush ( Mary Holsman). But Grimes discovers that the intervening years have turned Virginia into an overbearing shrew and that Barnstead is a miserably unhappy and troubled man while Grimes himself has long since made a good marriage. So when Barnstead arrives at his office, Grimes does not kill him. He merely extracts the tooth—without any gas whatsoever. Richard Lockridge of the Evening Sun wrote, “It is simple‐hearted, and that disarms criticism. Mr. Hagan has, by the sincerity and frequent delicacy of his writing, made the story real and affecting.” The day after the play opened, President Roosevelt declared a national bank holiday. Without funds the play was forced to close for a week until money could be found. It was later reported to have come within a single vote of winning the Pulitzer Prize.