Other Titles • People Will Talk • The Dr. Praetorious Story (1951)
Synopses for People Will Talk (1951)
1.
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
2.
A lovely movie featuring Cary Grant in one of his more inscrutable roles as an angel of mercy to the sick, recalling his work in THE BISHOP’S WIFE. PEOPLE WILL TALK focuses on Dr. Praetorius, a nontraditional doctor whose patients and medical students love him, while his success spurs the jealousy of fellow doctors, including teaching rival Shunderson. Content with his life, the doctor is thrown a curve ball when a beautiful but unmarried mother-to-be confirms her pregnancy at his clinic, then tries to shoot herself to avoid shaming her father. Taking unconventional healing a step farther, Praetorius marries her; their happiness is disrupted when Shunderson’s mysterious past is brought into the light, perhaps to topple Praetorius’s reputation and career. Weaving in the theme that doctors should treat the whole person, not only the disease, PEOPLE WILL TALK graces the pantheon of comic, romantic dramas; it is based on the play DR. PRAETORIUS, by Curt Goetz.
3.
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. Along the way, Praetorius befriends and intimately marries a young woman who attempts suicide when she discovers she is pregnant. But, as the witch-hunt into the good doctor's personal life progresses, so do the laughs in this well-crated, all-star treasure that should be part of every film lover's collection of classics.
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