The Tender Trap
Charlie Reader lives in a terrace apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side, overlooking the Queensboro Bridge. He is a bachelor, a transplant from the Midwest, who has no need to go out and find female companionship... they come to him. At 6pm on a Saturday evening he is necking with one Poppy Matson on his living room couch, when old buddy Joe McCall shows up unexpectedly. McCall is a chemist who has invented a pill to cure the common cold. He's come to visit Charlie to get ideas about testing and marketing it. Charlie welcomes him and introduces Poppy, and later his other girl friends. Joe is astonished at how the girls show up to clean Charlie's apartment, cook him meals, and bring him gifts like fish and cheese. Poppy, Jessica, and Sylvia have good careers but are feeling the urge to get married now that they are in their early thirties. The fourth and youngest girl friend, Julie Gillis, is equally in pursuit of Charlie but won't fall in line with his suggestions. The constant parade of femininity affects Joe, who up till now had entertained no stray thoughts about his marriage. He begins gravitating towards Sylvia, while Charlie finds himself more and more intrigued with Julie. Earl Lindquist finds Joe's pills are worthless, so there's no longer a reason for him to stay, but Charlie, under the press of unexpected competition blurts out a proposal to Sylvia. Aghast, he realizes the only thing to do is proposed to Julie as well. Joe, trying to stave off his return to wife and family, makes a half-hearted play for Sylvia. She forcefully reminds him about his wife, and decides Charlie isn't for her either, and so walks out on both men. Julie, however, has no intention of letting pride get between her and Charlie, and so the play ends with their engagement.