People Will Talk

People Will Talk Review

...shows his classic bent by bringing the story of Dr Praetorius to life. Cary Grant is the mysterious gynecologist who treats his patients holistically. (If my doctor looked like Cary Grant I think I would swoon and faint dead away). He is vaguely aware that he has an enemy in Dr. Elwell (wonderfully played as a fussy, nibbling, gerbil of a man by Hume Cronyn). Cronyn is on a witch hunt (it is the fifties after all) to run Praetorius off the faculty of the university where they teach. Having hired a private investigator, he knows that Praetorius may or may not really be a doctor, and also that Praetorius' ever present companion is a weird and maybe shady person. Consequently, Praetorius' problems mirror the problems of leftists in the country at the time. He may or may not have done something questionable, it doesn't matter, Elwell will get him anyway, and he is branded by the company he keeps. These were issues that must have been dear to Mankiewicz' heart as he helmed the Director's Guild during the focus of HUAC on Hollywood subversives. Mankiewicz was himself suspected of being such a subversive, and went through a hearing at the Guild similar to the one Grant goes through in the film. Fortunately, Mankiewicz' outcome was as satisfying as Grant's in the film. All of the background is interesting, but the film must stand alone as entertainment. I think it does.

This is not the typical Cary Grant comedy where we expect snappy dialogue, his incomparable doubletakes, and exciting heat with his leading lady. In this adaptation of a German play, the dialogue is witty, not snappy, the doubletakes make way for pregnant pauses for the audience to consider carefully, and the heat with the leading lady is a bit more tepid. (No slight to Jeanne Crain, I am a fan of hers, but the situation in which the characters find themselves is more conjugal than hot). The script is perfect for Mankiewicz, who was raised in a literate home by an academician. The score is classical and lovely, and the message is clear. Folks can be unconventional, but we shouldn't jump to conclusions about character without all of the facts, and people who properly mind their own business don 't need to pry into the lives of others who are acting within their rights under the law.

The problems with the film are that some of the scenes are stagey, and the transitions from one scene to another are a bit choppy. Jeanne Crain (whom Mankiewicz did not like or appreciate) is sometimes not clear in her interpretaion of her character's mood and emotions, so I thought her performance was a little confusing in some of her scenes.

Finlay Currie is really splendid as Mr. Shunderson, stage actor Walter Slezak really shows his flair for comedy, and Margaret Hamilton is wonderful in her opening scene. She sets the film up perfectly as one in which the audience needs to pay attention as we are in for something completely different.

People Will Talk Overview

Screen legend Cary Grant stars as Dr. Noah Praetorius, a lovable professor and head of a medical clinic who becomes the subject of a McCarthy-style investigation initiated by a jealous colleague (Hume Cronyn). Along the way, Praetorius befriends and ultimately marries a young woman who attempts suicide when she discovers she is pregnant. Baut as the witch-hunt into the good doctor's personal life progresses, so do the laughs in this well-crafted, all-star treasure that should be part of every film lover's collection of classics.

People Will Talk Specifications

After winning consecutive best director Oscars (for A Letter to Three Wives and All About Eve), Joseph Mankiewicz turned his attention to this extremely curious social comedy. Cary Grant plays a famous, idealistic gynecologist whose mysterious past is questioned by a vindictive colleague (Hume Cronyn). Meanwhile, the doctor falls for a pregnant patient (Jeanne Crain), whose unmarried status is daring for a movie of 1951 vintage. The title is an all-too-apt description of Mankiewicz's chatty style, but it also carries sinister echoes of the McCarthy era--specifically, an attempted right-wing purge of the Director's Guild, I which Mankiewicz was the main target. This subtext lends interest beyond the movie's rather tame romance. The Grant character, named Doctor Praetorius (no relation to the Bride of Frankenstein wacko, one hopes), conducts a college orchestra and is prone to "twilight sadness"--it's an offbeat role for the actor, and one he clearly relishes. --Robert Horton

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