Uncle Harry

Uncle Harry (1942), a play by Thomas Job. [ Broadhurst Theatre, 430 perf.] Harry Quincey (Joseph Schildkraut) is a mild‐mannered bachelor, dominated by his two spinster sisters, Lettie (Eva Le Gallienne) and Hester (Adelaide Klein), who call him “Uncle” Harry. Furious at their destroying his chance to marry Lucy Forrest (Beverly Roberts), he tricks Lettie into buying some poison and then has her serve it unwittingly to Hester in some cocoa. Lettie is sentenced to die for the murder. To Harry's dismay, Lucy will now have nothing to do with him. Remorsefully, he confesses the crime, but the authorities believe he is merely trying to save his sister. He visits Lettie in prison, where she refuses to reveal the truth. Harry thus is doomed to a life of loneliness and disgrace. Richard Lockridge of the Sun called the work, “An admirably sinister murder play, slightly diabolical in its ingenuity and warranted to make the timid look hereafter with uneasy suspicion on all quiet little men.”