One Sunday Afternoon

... The Strawberry Blonde.

This film is much darker than "The Strawberry Blonde". Biff Grimes (Gary Cooper), aspiring dentist, has a bad temper, and really loves Virginia (Faye Wray). However when Hugo Barnstead (Neil Hamilton) elopes with her, he marries her friend Mary on the rebound and to save face. Hugo rises to the level of running the factory where Biff works and threatens to fire Biff if he doesn't spy on the other employees. In a face off with Hugo, Biff gets into a scrap with a cop and the cop's gun goes off, striking him in the leg. Biff goes to prison for two years and finishes his dental training through correspondence. Then "one Sunday afternoon" years later Biff encounters Hugo again when he needs to have a tooth extracted. Since he uses gas during such extractions, Biff sees an opportunity for paying Hugo back with murder.

Although this film plays out much like "The Strawberry Blonde" there are a few differences. "The Strawberry Blonde" was much lighter. Hugo Barnstead in that film was played by Jack Carson, who could always manage to inject just a bit of likeability into the cads he played. Cagney doesn't seem as angry in his rendition of Biff as Cooper does, and Cagney's Biff doesn't need to see what has become of his ideal woman (Virginia) years later in order to start appreciating his wife. Also, Cagney was innocent of any intentional wrongdoing in the crime that sent him to prison, where Cooper's Biff Grimes let his temper get the best of him in his downfall.