The Strawberry Blonde is a 1941 American romantic comedy 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 New York City around 1900, 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".

The title is most often listed beginning with the word The (as it appears in the opening credits), but the film's posters and promotional materials called it simply Strawberry Blonde.

The film was a more lighthearted remake of the 1933 non-musical movie One Sunday Afternoon, directed by Stephen Roberts and starring Gary Cooper.

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.

The movie runs as a long flashback in the 1890's in New York City and opening with Biff Grimes (James Cagney) as an unsuccessful dentist on a Sunday without work.

[3] Cagney usually played tough guys at Warner Bros. in the early 1930s, but he had shown his talents at lighter, musical material in films like Footlight Parade (1933)[4] 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.

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 had a first draft of a screenplay done by Stephen Morehouse Avery that satisfied no one;[9] he called in the Epstein brothers, Julius and Phillip, for another vision—one that might hook Cagney into the project.

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.

[6] 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.

"[6] 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.

"[12] (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.

[14] Critic Bosley Crowther praised Strawberry Blonde in a New York Times February 1941 review, calling it "lusty, affectionate, and altogether winning.

"[15] Part of its "amiable, infectious quality", he wrote, came from its cast: "James Cagney, true to form, is excellent as the pugnacious and proud little guy who 'don't take nothing from nobody' cause that's the kind of hairpin he is.