Production Notes on the Stage Version

BECAUSE the script on which the radio, television, and motion picture scripts were based was written to serve the immediate purposes of the demonstration, it is, in a sense, necessarily undistinguished as drama. By the same token, however, it necessarily fulfills certain minimum dramatic requirements. It centers on the Johnson family, struck by a domestic thunderstorm on an otherwise peaceful Sunday afternoon. The suspense is provided by Sam, Jr., whose desire to protect his friend Lillian has got him into a jam. The girl's stern father, Craig the druggist, unpleasantly disturbs the after-dinner rest of the Johnsons with heated accusations that Sam, Jr., is a thief. Father Johnson, however, understands his boy's gallant motives, and after the intruder has left and Mother Johnson has retired, he finds in a heart-to-heart talk with his son a perhaps less exemplary than practical solution to the problem. He replaces "seven dollars in quarters and dimes," which the girl, protected by Sam, Jr., has taken from her father's cash register, by "borrowing" from Mother's savings bank, confiding to Sam that he has "borrowed" from it before without being found out. With this example of his own behavior before us, his paternal warning never to lie again does not sound very rigid. Declaring that Sam's honest face must come from "mother's side of the family," Mr. Johnson brings the scene to a happy end with a jaunty punch line. As part of a full-length comedy the scene would presumably have been placed at the end of the second act, constituting the climax of a carefully contrived plot with father, son, and girl friend as leads and the other characters in supporting roles. The audience would have learned all about the plot and the characters in the preceding scenes and would have been assured that the last 114