A 1950 play from William Inge, Come Back, Little Sheba follows Doc and Lola Delaney, an unhappily married middle-aged couple. Doc is a recovering alcoholic, currently one year sober, and Lola is a depressed housewife who leaves the house a mess and daily calls for her lost dog, Little Sheba, who ran off sometime before the play's beginning. Their unhappy lives are interrupted when Lola decides to make some extra money by renting out a room to Marie, a young college student who is engaged to a young man named Bruce but finds herself infatuated with Turk, a track star she asks to model for an art project of hers.
It was adapted for film in 1952, starring Burt Lancaster, Terry Moore, and Richard Jaeckel, with Shirley Booth reprising her stage role as Lola in her film debut. It also received a TV Movie adaptation in 1977.
Tropes:
- The Alcoholic: Doc is a year sober at the play's start and falls off the wagon in the climax.
- Awful Wedded Life: Doc and Lola are polite to each other, but distant and whatever sparks there may have been are long dead. The ending suggests they might be able to at least move forward from their misery though.
- Hollywood Old: Burt Lancaster is a great actor, but he was 38 at the time and it is a bit of a stretch for him to play a middle-aged lifelong alcoholic.
- I Have No Daughter: Lola's father threw her out of the house after she got pregnant and apparently still refuses to acknowledge her. Keep in mind, Lola is middle-aged now, and got pregnant when Doc was in med school.
- I Was Quite a Looker: A big part of while Lola starts living vicariously through Marie by encouraging her to pursue Turk is that Marie reminds her of how she was before she became "old, fat, and sloppy".
- "Ray of Hope" Ending: After everything they've been through, Doc and Lola might actually be able to patch up their relationship and rebuild their lives, and Lola learns how to let go of the past, represented by her coming to terms with Little Sheba's death.
- Shotgun Wedding: A major factor in Doc and Lola's unhappy life is the fact that he dropped out of medical school to marry after she got pregnant. Not only did he ruin his career, they lost the child and Lola couldn't have more.
- Slut-Shaming:
- Lola's father disowned her for getting pregnant.
- Doc falls off the wagon after thinking Turk and Marie are sleeping together (in reality he tried to pressure her and she kicked him out, but Doc missed him leaving), and comes home drunk the next morning to berate Lola for putting on a pretty dress.
