Both the director of
Strawberry Blonde, Raoul Walsh, and its star James Cagney came to the project looking for a change of pace. 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." The transition between the outdoorsy film noir and the light and sentimental studio-centered
Strawberry Blonde "proved no problem" for Walsh. 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. 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." 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 Hagan 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"—and the only Cooper picture ever to lose money. James Cagney had qualms about it because it would be a remake, and Jack Warner knew it needed "complete retooling." 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." 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.'" 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." 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. This film marked the first time Hayworth was seen as a redhead and the only time that audiences heard her real singing voice. 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." Walsh considered it his most successful picture to date, and he called it his favorite film. File:AmyBiffStrawbBlonde1941Trailer.jpg|Amy Lind shocks Biff with her modern "new ideas", so scandalous in the Gay '90s File:VirginiaBiffStrawbBlonde1941Trailer.jpg|Virginia's flirtatious beauty captivates Biff and holds him tight for years afterward File:BiffFightsStrawbBlonde1941Trailer.jpg|Pugnacious Biff calls out Nicholas's barbershop patron over Miss Brush's honor File:BiffNicholasStrawbBlonde1941Trailer.jpg|Biff and Nicholas, lifelong pals; George Tobias received good notices as Nicholas ==Reception==