vincentlynch-moonoi It's interesting to note the relatively solid rating this film gets here on IMDb (7.3 at the time of this writing), and to read the reviews and discussion. There's no doubt about it -- this is an odd film -- almost desafinado -- slightly out of tune.The opening segment of the film is interesting...and funny. Pipsqueak Professor Elwell (Hume Cronyn) is interviewing Margaret Hamilton (the witch in "The Wizard Of Oz") trying to find out information about the mysterious Dr. Praetorious (Cary Grant) and his constant companion Shunderson (Finlay Currie; the devout follower of Christ in "Ben-Hur").From there we meet young Jeanne Crain who faints in class. She goes to Dr. Praetorius and learns she is pregnant, and he learns she is unwed. She attempts suicide and stays at his clinic, but then disappears. But, Cary Grant pursues her to her uncle's farm where she and her father unhappily live...but not for long...he proposes.And then comes the climax of the film -- the hearing where Elwell brings charges against Preatorious. It's a great scene as Grant responds to all the charges, one by one. But then comes the question about the mysterious Shunderson, which he refuses to answer. Will he fall on this? No, because Shunderson enters the room and tells his own marvelous story. Hearing over. And Shunderson, in private, calls Elwell a "little man".I enjoy this film every time I watch it, and I must have watched it more than half-a-dozen times. And the main reason I enjoy it is the wonderful performance of an aging and very tan Cary Grant; it really is one of his best performances. Jeanne Crain is superb here, as well, and this is one of her best role. Finlay Currie is wonderful as the mysterious Shunderson. Although his character is not likable, Hume Cronyn's performance is exceptional. Walter Slezak plays a lovable curmudgeon who is friends with Praetorious. And this was the film where I first noticed Sidney Blackmer...a fine and underrated character actor; this is one of his best roles. Basil Ruysdael does well as the college dean.Earlier I said that this film was almost desafinado. But that is not a negative. It's gloriously different. Highly recommended!

kenjha A professor falls in love with a pregnant, unwed student. Given the time of its release, the frank handling of out-of-wedlock pregnancy is surprising. The film also takes on McCarthyism, as Grant is accused of unethical medical practices. People do talk a lot here, but it's mostly interesting dialog from Mankiewicz, coming off back-to-back screen writing Oscars the previous two years. Grant and Crain are fine, although their age difference makes their romance a bit awkward. There's a good supporting cast. The soundtrack prominently and fittingly features the "Academic Festival Overture," which Brahms wrote as a potpourri of beer- drinking college songs.

Robert J. Maxwell Well, Cary Grant will never be anything but elegant and Joseph L. Mankievicz will never be anything but literate, yet this mostly fails as comedy, romance, and drama. Maybe Goetz's play had something to do with it.Cary Grant is Dr. Praetorius, a name to be conjured with ever since "The Bride of Frankenstein." Cary Grant knows his way around the human body, having been a doctor at least once before, in "Crisis," in which he was pretty good. Here, as a professor, humanitarian healer, conductor of the university orchestra, owner of his own obstetrical clinic, a man who can help a dying patient by describing death as a trip on a magic carpet, a man with a mysterious past, he should be every woman's dream. But he's either miscast or he doesn't play it well. He comes up with all these pseudo-philosophical apothegms but he does it with a knowing smirk, as if the person he's talking to is a complete dolt and Grant, the Great Physician, is holding back ninety percent of what he knows. It's a little embarrassing to watch.The dialog, by Mankiewicz from Goetz's play, is often embarrassing too. It strains to be elegant and lyrical -- it creaks at the JOINTS -- but it doesn't quite catch the bar. Contractions are avoided. "I will not do it." "You are a well-known person." "One's commitment to a profession should be complete." People speak lines that sound as if they were formal notes that had just been discovered in an attic trunk that hadn't been opened since 1918. The romance is incredible. I think Grant meets the pregnant heroine, Jeanne Crain, about three times before deciding to marry her. She's confessed her love for him during meeting number two. Crain's family, such as it is, looks prosperous enough. Her father is a failed poet. Both the father and Crain herself are dependent on Crain's uncle, an old skinflint whose English isn't up to Goetz and Mankiewicz standards. Grant dislikes him at once, and the withered old skinflint would dislike Grant if he bothered to give him any thought. But Grant gets to make an interesting point. The old fraud is cheating on his income tax, claiming all kinds of "depletions and depreciations." Grant makes some comment about it and adds that people like country doctors and teachers can't claim depreciation because when they get run down all they own is talent and they can't claim depreciation of value on their income tax. The scofflaw at least has a maid. Her name is Bella. Or maybe it's a cook named Bela. They're a great convenience. I have a charwoman come in once a month myself because of my lumbago, an old war wound received in a small scrap with some Amish terrorists. Her name is Martha and she doesn't speak English. My command of Spanish has deteriorated into a kind of influence over it, so I have to search for every request in a Spanish-English dictionary. My mattress has a habit of migrating to the foot of the bed and I wanted her to straighten it up, so I looked up each word separately, disregarding such niceties as gender and number, and jammed all the pieces together into a sentence. I gave her my request which, in English, looked like, "I am profoundly concerned about the disposition of today's mattresses; please arrest the motion." It certainly showed her who was boss around here because she began to tremble and turn pale. I had to help her to a chair.Where was I? Yes. Thank you. The climax -- you won't believe this -- is about a shady character who Grant always claims is a "friend." Everywhere Grant goes, Shunderson goes with him. I began to wonder if this was only a daring treatment of pre-marital pregnancy. Was there more to it than meets the eye? Were Praetorius and Shunderson a couple? (No.) The climax is a hearing presided over by the evil Dr. Malware (Cronyn) or whatever his name is. It's such a poignant tale of mistreatment that it's almost funny. "People Will Talk" isn't very often thought of or mentioned when buffs consider Cary Grant's career and in truth it doesn't deserve too much attention. But given the right role, nobody could do it like Cary Grant, except maybe Tony Curtis.

dougdoepke No need to repeat the plot, which is pretty convoluted, anyway. Clearly this oddball piece of work is a message movie and a reflection of its time. It's also highly uneven, at times bordering on the ludicrous, yet gutsy too, with moments of genuine charm. Note that studio honcho Zanuck himself produced, perhaps signaling that the controversial anti-McCarthy subtext carried clear studio approval.That opening scene with Hamilton and Cronyn is a little comedic gem, but more importantly also serves to raise a major theme—namely, that rules should not be blindly followed. This turns out to be Praetorious' (Grant) main gripe with the medical profession and we get variations for the movie's remainder. I'm just sorry the rest of the film couldn't make its points in similarly entertaining fashion as this opening scene. Yes, there are other charming bits—Grant's back-and-forth with the cranky Slezak, or the toy train sequence.But too much of the film is given over to inflated dialog that's pompously stilted and painful to listen to. Is this how writer Mankiewicz really believes academics talk, in perfectly formed sentences that go on and on. Even such a winning personality as Grant is transformed by these clunky dialog demands. At the same time, there's no need to repeat the often poorly staged, ludicrous plot developments that other reviewers have cataloged (especially the awkwardly conceived barn scene with Grant and Crain).However, keep in mind what was happening in the country at that time, circa 1951. A veil of political and cultural conformity was descending, driven by the war in Korea and the McCarthy hearings it fueled. Difference was regarded with suspicion. In short, it took some guts to critique conformity in any of America's main institutions (here the medical establishment) or celebrate pompous iconoclasm (Grant) or intelligent failures (Blackmer) or convicted criminals (Currie) or academic eccentrics (Slezak). And on the feminine side, it took nerve to present the problems of compromised motherhood (Crain) or a bare female back (supposedly a cadaver's). Yet, the film's clear direction is toward challenging the conservatism of the day. But it's also a measure of the movie's unevenness that the villains (Cronyn and Wright) come off as strictly one-dimensional, easy targets.I expect the expert Grant was brought in to make the whole thing go down easier. Nonetheless, the overall result amounts to an awkward hybrid of subtext and comedy, rather daring and offbeat for its time, but now too sour and strange for even that endlessly triumphal final scene to overcome.