The Theatre: Old Play in Manhattan: Oct. 16, 1939

They Knew What They Wanted (by Sidney Howard; produced by Leonard Sillman) is the Pulitzer Prize play that made the late Sidney Howard famous. After 15 years it seems (like rooms and houses not seen since childhood) much smaller than memory suggested. It still has fresh and human qualities and a wise moral, but clearly it was the brilliant acting of Pauline Lord, Richard Bennett and Glenn Anders that gave it its original gloss.

Down-to-earth is Playwright Howard's tale of an elderly Italian winegrower in the Napa Valley who courts a San Francisco waitress by mail, palming off his handsome young foreman's...

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