People Will Talk (1951)

People Will Talk
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz from a play by Curt Goetz
1951/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Doctor Noah Praetorius: Professor Elwell, you are the only man I know who can say ‘malignant’ the way other people say ‘Bingo!’.[/box]

This is a delightful, if uncharacteristic, comedy from Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

Noah Praetorius (Cary Grant) is a rich, famous and beloved OB/GYN who is currently teaching at a medical school.  His is an unorthodox approach which focuses on the whole patient and relies as much on psychology as medicine or surgery.  He is accompanied everywhere he goes by the hulking, silent Shunderson (Finlay Currie) who appears to be totally devoted to him.  As the movie begins, Prof. Rodney Elwell (Hume Cronyn) is frantically digging up dirt on Praetorius in an effort to discredit him.  Elwell drags in the doctor’s former housekeeper (Margaret Hamilton) and hires a private detective to investigate the myserious Shunderson.

One day, a student faints during Praetorius’s anatomy class.  She is Deborah Higgins (Jeanne Crain) and Praetarius soon informs her that she is pregnant.  This is a problem as Deborah is not married and furthermore believes that news of this would kill her father. She attempts suicide and while she is recovering from surgery for her wound, Praetorius tells her that there was a mix-up in the laboratory samples and she is not, in fact, pregnant.

Praetorius then takes off with Shunderson to the farm where Deborah lives with her father and greedy tax-evading uncle.  The idea is to break the news of Deborah’s pregnancy to her father and pave the way for Deborah’s acceptance of her condition.  But Deborah’s father (Sidney Blackmer) has been so thoroughly ground down by life and his horrible brother that he believes himself to be a total failure.  He says the only bright spot in his life is Deborah and Noah does not have the heart to tell him anything.

I won’t go farther into the plot which has a number of remarkable twist and turns and culminates in the dramatic reveal of Shunderson’s past.  With Walter Slezak as Praetorius’s friend.

After reading the plot synopsis of this one, I was really leery going in and wound up totally charmed by it.  Mankiewicz gets in numerous digs at the medical profession but the tone is more whimsical than satirical.  The fine cast handles the wonderful dialogue admirably. They are all great but I totally fell in love with Finlay Currie.  Recommended.

Trailer