New Play in Manhattan, Nov. 8, 1948

Minnie and Mr. Williams (by Richard Hughes; produced by John Gassner & David Dietz) reached Broadway 25 years after it was written, and ran for less than a week. In it the author of A High Wind in Jamaica had written a folksy Welsh fantasy involving a virtuous village clergyman (Eddie Dowling), his wooden-legged wife Minnie (Josephine Hull), a young girl in the employ of the Devil, and the high-kicking flesh & blood leg that Minnie suddenly sprouted. The whole thing was a frisky parable in which good & evil did not wrestle so much as tickle each other with straws. Generally tame and frequently tedious, Minnie owed its gayest moments to the bouncy charm of Actress Hull (Arsenic and Old Lace, Harvey).