The Strawberry Blonde (promoted as simply Strawberry Blonde) is a 1941 American romantic comedy drama film directed by Raoul Walsh, starring James Cagney and Olivia de Havilland, and featuring Rita Hayworth, Alan Hale, Jack Carson, and George Tobias. Set in 1890s New York City, it features songs of that era such as "The Band Played On", "Bill Bailey", "Meet Me in St. Louis, Louie", "Wait Till The Sun Shines Nellie", and "Love Me and the World Is Mine". It was nominated for an Academy Award in 1941 for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture.
The film was a more lighthearted remake of the 1933 non-musical movie One Sunday Afternoon directed by Stephen Roberts and starring Gary Cooper. Unlike the earlier picture, it was a hit. In 1948, Walsh directed a third version of the story, also called One Sunday Afternoon, featuring early 20th-century songs combined with original musical numbers.
Plot Biff Grimes is a middle-class dentist in New York City who is trying to relax on a Sunday afternoon, setting plans to go on a walk with his wife, Amy. Although he normally refuses appointments on Sundays, he receives a call from Hugo Barnstead, an old partner and nemesis, who desperately needs dental attention. Biff accepts the appointment, remarking that after his recent release from jail, he had considered tracking down Hugo and killing him. He thinks back to the events of the previous decade over a long flashback.
Aspiring dentist Biff and his enterprising friend Hugo go on a series of double dates with fashionable strawberry-blonde society girl Virginia Brush and her less-glamorous best friend, Amy Lind, a hardworking nurse with suffragette sympathies. From the outset, Biff is prejudiced against Amy's independent tendencies and states his preference for the more alluring Virginia. With Hugo's consent, the men alternately spend time with each girl. They often meet in the park, to Biff's benefit as he has somewhat of a ruffian reputation.
After serendipitously spending a day in the city together, Biff quickly falls in love with Virginia. She returns his affection but has already made a series of other dates before they can get together again. While waiting to meet Virginia in the park for a follow-up date, Biff is disappointed by Amy's sudden appearance. He learns that Virginia and Hugo have abruptly married that afternoon. While stating his anger at Hugo's betrayal, he finds it easy to accept the loss of Virginia as Amy comforts him and he realizes she is the woman of stronger character.
Biff goes on to marry Amy and the two meet Hugo and Virginia for dinner. Virginia has become disappointed in her marriage to Hugo and continues to care for Biff, insisting that Hugo make him the vice president of his building company. Biff accepts but is disappointed to by a lack of engagement in the business, simply being told to sign papers he doe not understand. When the city announces an investigation of the company for negligence, Hugo claims ignorance and Biff takes the fall due to the appearance of his signature on numerous documents. He serves a five-year jail sentence, after which he returns to Amy and his dental trade. When Hugo arrives with a toothache, he is surprised to find that the dentist is Biff, who pulls the tooth without administering laughing gas.
Cast
James Cagney as T. L. 'Biff' Grimes Olivia de Havilland as Amy Lind Rita Hayworth as Virginia Brush Alan Hale as William 'Old Man' Grimes Jack Carson as Hugo Barnstead George Tobias as Nicholas Pappalas Una O'Connor as Mrs. Timothy Mulcahey George Reeves as Harold Lucile Fairbanks as Harold's girlfriend Edward McNamara as Big Joe Helen Lynd as Josephine Herbert Heywood as Toby Russell Hicks as Treadway (uncredited) Frank Mayo as Policeman (uncredited) Jack Mower as Streetcleaner (uncredited) Nan Wynn as Rita Hayworth's singing voice (uncredited)Hagen, Wagner, Tompkins "Movie Dubbers", http://www.barbaralea.com/Dubbers/dubberslist.html
Development and production Both the director of Strawberry Blonde, Raoul Walsh, and its star James Cagney came to the project looking for a change of pace.Moss, Marilyn Ann (2011). Raoul Walsh: The True Adventures of Hollywood's Legendary Director. Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky. . p. 198 Walsh had just completed the dark Humphrey Bogart/Ida Lupino vehicle High Sierra, shot largely on location, and the good notices the film received had Walsh "as fired up as Jack Warner to keep the ball rolling on projects in development and production."Moss, p. 198 The transition between the outdoorsy film noir and the light and sentimental studio-centered Strawberry Blonde "proved no problem" for Walsh.
Cagney usually played tough guys at Warner Bros. Pictures in the early 1930s, but he had shown his talents at lighter, musical material in films like Footlight Parade (1933)Warren, Doug, and James Cagney (1986). Cagney: The Authorized Biography. New York: St. Martin's Press. . p. 101 He left the studio in mid-decade, then returned in 1938 with a contract that gave him more control in choosing roles and brought his younger brother William Cagney as assistant producer and informal buffer between himself and studio executives.Warren, p. 124 However, Cagney soon found himself getting slotted into tough guy parts. and by 1940, he "wanted a nostalgic part—any part—to take him away from the gangsters he was now loathe [sic] to play."Moss, p. 200
A property on the lot that might fill that bill was One Sunday Afternoon. It had started early in 1933 as a successful Broadway play by James HaganHalliwell, Leslie with John Walker, ed. (1994). Halliwell's Film Guide. New York: HarperPerennial. . p. 894 and had been adapted later that year by Paramount as a vehicle for Gary Cooper. It was "the only real flop of Cooper's stellar and carefully orchestrated career"Moss, p. 199—and the only Cooper picture ever to lose money. James Cagney had qualms about it because it would be a remake,Moss, p. 200 and Jack Warner knew it needed "complete retooling". It was a "pet project" of William Cagney, who saw it as a "gift to [the brothers'] mother, Carrie Cagney, who would live only a few more years", and Warner recognized the inside track this leverage would give him with his often recalcitrant star. Warner screened the 1933 film and wrote a memo to his production head Hal B. Wallis telling him to watch it also: "It will be hard to stay through the entire running of the picture, but do this so you will know what not to do."
Wallis knew the trick was to tailor the script as a vehicle for Cagney, who had yet to commit either to the project or even to his brother. Wallis had a first draft of a screenplay done by Stephen Morehouse Avery that satisfied no one;McGilligan, Patrick (1986). Backstory: Interviews with Screenwriters of Hollywood's Golden Age. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. . p. 180 he called in the Epstein brothers, Julius and Phillip, for another vision—one that might hook Cagney into the project. The brothers and William all concurred that the first thing to do was move things from the play's midwest setting to New York City because "they all knew it so much better."Moss, p. 200 Said Julius: "We thought the reason [the Cooper film] lost money was it was too bucolic. It took place in a little country town. We said 'Change it to the big city. Put it in New York.'"McGilligan, p. 180 The Epstein version quickly took shape, aided by the objective of making it a Cagney picture. "When we went on the rewrite," Julius said, "we knew it was for Cagney. That was a help."
Cagney still was reluctant. Wallis was getting impatient; he considered the emerging John Garfield for the role of Biff Grimes. By July 1940, concern about the impasse stretched all the way to New York, where Harry Warner cabled brother Jack that he was willing to give Cagney 10% of the gross, and then Cagney began to budge. One issue was that he didn't want to play scenes with the much-taller Jack Carson; he would prefer the shorter Brian Donlevy or the shorter-still Lloyd Nolan. The difference was that Nolan commanded $2,000 per week and that Carson got $750 per week. Despite Cagney's misgivings, Carson was cast as Hugo Barnstead.
More problematic was the casting of the Virginia Brush role, which was originally created for Ann Sheridan, the studio's "Oomph Girl".Katz, Ephraim, Fred Klein and Ronald Dean Nolen (2005). The Film Encyclopedia. New York: Harper Collins. . p. 1284 Sheridan was in one of her contract disputes with the studio and refused to do the film. Jack Warner asked Walsh to talk Sheridan into it, but she still refused. Wallis tested actress Brenda Marshall for the part, but Walsh spoke up about "a girl" he had seen in several Columbia pictures: young Rita Hayworth. "He thought she was perfect for the part, and after she was signed without a hitch, from then on he always referred to Hayworth as his 'find' (despite [the splash she had made in] Only Angels Have Wings released in 1939)."
Hayworth received $450 per week for the film and began work immediately with makeup man Perc Westmore to find the look for the title character in what would soon be retitled Strawberry Blonde. After shooting test footage and many stills of his makeup experiments, Westmore memoed Wallis: "Her head is so large and she has so much hair that it will practically be impossible to put a wig on her. Whatever color you decide on, she will be happy to have it made that color. Then at the end of the picture, we will dye it back to its natural color."Moss, p. 201 This film marked the first time Hayworth was seen as a redhead and the only time that audiences heard her real singing voice.
The shooting of Strawberry Blonde began on October 21, 1940. Wallis and Walsh quickly came to problems. The producer thought his director was coming in too close on the actors, that the close-ups decreased the nostalgia by obscuring the period backgrounds. Wallis's October 29, 1940 memo chided "You have so much opportunity on this picture for atmosphere and composition...and I hate like hell to see them go by without full advantage being taken of what we have." (Several months later, with Michael Curtiz on Yankee Doodle Dandy, Wallis's complaints would be just the opposite: "Mike, get the story from the actors' faces, instead of going all over the place.")Moss, p. 202 Walsh in reality had "memorized the entire script and had worked out every camera angle and move—a visual map of just how he would shoot." As the footage continued to flow, the memos slowed, then stopped.
Olivia de Havilland had no idea of the friction between the two, no problem with the closeups, and she debunked Walsh's reputation as a tough guy. "I loved working with Raoul. He seemed to understand perfectly the characters we were playing, and to understand, too, the 'actor' approach to them. It was a happy, harmonious set, a happy picture to make." The screenwriters too found Walsh a good boss. Julius Epstein said he "was great. He was very businesslike. He didn't change a word on The Strawberry Blonde. Some writers complained about Walsh. My experience with him was very good."
When Warner Bros. released Strawberry Blonde on February 21, 1941, "the studio knew it had a hit on its hands."Moss, p. 203 Walsh considered it his most successful picture to date, and he called it his favorite film.
Reception