''People Will Talk'' is a

1951 Events January * January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950). * January 9 – The Government of the United ...

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

romantic comedy/drama film directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck from a screenplay by Mankiewicz, based on the German play by Curt Goetz, which was made into a movie in Germany ('' Doctor Praetorius'', 1950). Released by

Twentieth Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...

, it stars

Cary Grant Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was an English-American actor. He was known for his Mid-Atlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing. He was one of ...

and Jeanne Crain, with supporting performances by

Hume Cronyn Hume Blake Cronyn Jr. OC (July 18, 1911 – June 15, 2003) was a Canadian-American actor and writer. Early life Cronyn, one of five children, was born in London, Ontario, Canada. His father, Hume Blake Cronyn, Sr., was a businessman an ...

Finlay Currie William Finlay Currie (20 January 1878 – 9 May 1968) was a Scottish actor of stage, screen, and television.McFarlane, Brian (28 February 2014). ''The Encyclopedia of British Film: Fourth edition''. Oxford University Press. pp. 175-176; He re ...

Walter Slezak Walter Slezak (; 3 May 1902 – 21 April 1983) was an Austrian-born film and stage actor active between 1922 and 1976. He mainly appeared in German films before migrating to the United States in 1930 and performing in numerous Hollywood producti ...

and

Sidney Blackmer Sidney Alderman Blackmer (July 13, 1895 – October 6, 1973) was an American Broadway and film actor active between 1914 and 1971, usually in major supporting roles. Biography Blackmer was born and raised in Salisbury, North Carolina, t ...

. It was nominated for the

Writers Guild of America The Writers Guild of America is the joint efforts of two different US labor unions representing TV and film writers: * The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), headquartered in New York City and affiliated with the AFL–CIO * The Writers Gu ...

screen Award for Best Written American Comedy (Joseph L. Mankiewicz).

Plot

Dr. Noah Praetorius is a

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

who teaches in a medical school and founded a clinic dedicated to treating patients humanely and holistically. A colleague who dislikes Praetorius's unorthodox but effective methods, Dr. Rodney Elwell, has hired a detective to investigate Praetorius. A housemaid who once worked for Praetorius reacts visibly when Elwell asks her about Praetorius's mysterious friend Mr. Shunderson, who rarely leaves Praetorius's side and has a deep, intuitive understanding of human and animal nature. Meanwhile, student Deborah Higgins enters Praetorius's life, displaying signs of emotional distress. After she faints during a lecture, Praetorius examines her and informs her that she's pregnant. Upset by this news, "Mrs. Higgins" admits that she's not really married. She will not reveal who the unborn child’s father is, and says knowing about her condition would be too much for her own father to bear. In a hallway near Praetorius's office, she shoots herself. After successfully operating on Deborah, Praetorius tries to calm her by telling her there was a mistake in her pregnancy test, but she has fallen in love with him, and becomes upset at her own embarrassing behavior. She runs away from the clinic, forcing him to find her so he can tell her she really is pregnant. Praetorius and Shunderson drive out to where Deborah and her father Arthur live, a farm owned by Arthur's brother, John.Arthur thinks that his daughter burned herself with a curling iron. Deborah and Praetorius hide Deborah's shooting incident from her father, who is a failure in life and lives unhappily as a dependent of his stingy brother. Deborah is his only pride in life, which might become intolerable for him with a baby to take care of and his daughter's reputation ruined. While showing Praetorius the farm, Deborah admits her love for him. She also wonders why he is visiting and begins to suspect that he is attracted to her. After she seductively interrogates him, they share a passionate kiss. They soon get married, and Arthur comes to live with them. Deborah goes to the store in order to buy her husband an electric train set and a birthday cake for his birthday.A few weeks later, Deborah suggests to Noah that she may be pregnant, and he admits that she was pregnant all along.They debate over the due date of the baby. Her husband says September and she says December. She ruefully concludes that he married her out of pity, but he convinces her that he really did fall in love with her. Elwell's detective discovers that Shunderson was once convicted of murder, and Elwell calls for a misconduct hearing against Praetorius. A photographer takes a picture of Saunderson. Saunderson confides with doctor Praetorius about the photographer. Professor Elwell pays doctor Praetorius a visit. Instead Deborah answers the door. The professor congratulates Deborah on her being newly married. He requests to meet with her husband concerning confidential information. Deborah confronts him about the vicious gossip concerning her husband. The hearing coincidentally occurs at the same time as the hearing. At the hearing, Praetorius explains that he started his career in a small town by opening a butcher shop as a front for his undeclared medical practice, because the people of the town didn't trust doctors. Elwell accuses Praetorius of "

quackery Quackery, often synonymous with health fraud, is the promotion of fraudulent or ignorant medical practices. A quack is a "fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill" or "a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to have skill, ...

", but Praetorius defends himself with the fact that he was a licensed practitioner, describing how he was forced to leave town after his maid discovered his medical degree. Praetorius refuses to answer questions about Shunderson, but Shunderson explains that he served 15 years in prison for the alleged death of a man who had tried to murder him, then somehow survived being hanged after actually murdering the man, who had gone into hiding during the first trial. When he woke up, he was lying on a table in front of Praetorius, who was at that time a medical student examining what he believed was a

cadaver A cadaver or corpse is a dead human body that is used by medical students, physicians and other scientists to study anatomy, identify disease sites, determine causes of death, and provide tissue to repair a defect in a living human being. Stud ...

. Praetorius kept Shunderson's survival a secret, and Shunderson became Praetorius's devoted friend. After this story is told, the chairman concludes the hearing in Praetorius's favor, and Elwell walks away alone and discredited. Elwell had purposefully arranged for Praetorius's misconduct hearing to be scheduled for the same time as the student/faculty orchestra's concert. After the hearing and Praetorius' acquittal, the film ends with Deborah, her father, and Shunderson in the audience watching Praetorius' good friend and confidant, physics professor Lyonel Barker, play in the orchestra while Praetorius conducts it in the finale of

Brahms Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped with ...

's ''

Academic Festival Overture ''Academic Festival Overture'' (german: Akademische Festouvertüre), Op. 80, by Johannes Brahms, was one of a pair of contrasting concert overtures — the other being the ''Tragic Overture'', Op. 81. Brahms composed the work during the su ...

'', " Gaudeamus Igitur".

Cast

as Dr. Noah Praetorius * Jeanne Crain as Deborah Praetorius *

as Shunderson *

as Prof. Rodney Elwell *

as Prof. Lyonel Barker *

as Arthur Higgins *

Basil Ruysdael Basil Spaulding Millspaugh (July 24, 1878 – October 10, 1960), known as Basil Ruysdael, was an American actor and opera singer. Early life Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, as Basil Spaulding Millspaugh, Ruysdael was the son of Dr and Mrs Char ...

as Dean Lyman Brockwell * Katherine Locke as Miss James * Parley Baer as Toy Store Salesman (uncredited) *

Bess Flowers Bess Flowers (November 23, 1898 – July 28, 1984) was an American actress best known for her work as an extra in hundreds of films. She was known as "The Queen of the Hollywood Extras," appearing in more than 350 feature films and numerou ...

as Concert audience member (uncredited) * Margaret Hamilton as Sarah Pickett, the housekeeper (uncredited) *

Stuart Holmes Stuart Holmes (born Joseph Liebchen; March 10, 1884 – December 29, 1971) was an American actor and sculptor whose career spanned seven decades. He appeared in almost 450 films between 1909 and 1964, sometimes credited as Stewart Holmes. Biog ...

as Board member (uncredited) * Jack Kelly as Student in classroom (uncredited) * Will Wright as John Higgins (uncredited)

Reception

On August 30, 1951, ''The New York Times'' praised the film in a long review, predicting the kind of acclaim received by the producers' previous hit, ''All About Eve''. “For this merry melange of medicine, mystery and what must be the Mankiewicz philosophical code takes itself seriously but not so seriously as to avoid injecting as many chuckles as possible within the framework of an adult story… Using a script which is as sharp as a scalpel… the scenarist-director is relating the story of a strange, handsome medico a doctor who is not content to diagnose and cure but one who knows there is a vast difference between that concept and his duty which is ‘to make sick people well’….But a synopsis is merely a bare and unflattering skeleton. It does not reveal that Mr. Mankiewicz and crew are railing against callousness in medicine, that ‘the human body is not necessarily the human being.’ …Cary Grant.. is obviously having the time of his life playing Dr. Prateorius…his portrayal is an effective mixture of medicine and merriment. …Despite the fact that Mr. Mankiewicz' script is in error sometimes—atomic scientists are using atomic energy to make people well—it does make its points clearly and with humor. …(the film) does have something to say and it does so with erudition and high comedy, a compound that is vastly entertaining and rewarding."

Political overtones

A review at the Films de France website''People Will Talk'' (1951) at filmsdefrance.co.
(retrieved 28 May 2013) postulates that the movie is a reaction to "Mankiewicz’s own experiences during the

McCarthyist McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term origina ...

Communist

witch hunt A witch-hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. The classical period of witch-hunts in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America took place in the Early Modern perio ...

s of the late 1940s and early 1950s, while he was president of the

Directors Guild of America The Directors Guild of America (DGA) is an entertainment guild that represents the interests of film director, film and television director, television directors in the United States motion picture industry and abroad. Founded as the Screen Dire ...

(1950-51)". The film's investigative trial parallels hearings by anti-Communist crusaders in the U.S. Congress. Just as some there refused to name names, Cary Grant's lead character declines to clear his own name by revealing the private business of another person, in this case a convicted murderer. The review further advanced that the movie deals with many other issues, including the pregnancy of a single woman, the "corrosive effect of unfettered capitalism, the human cost of the

Korean war {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Korean War , partof = the Cold War and the Korean conflict , image = Korean War Montage 2.png , image_size = 300px , caption = Clockwise from top:{ ...

, among others."

Music

The film's score consists of two classical pieces:

Johannes Brahms Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped wit ...

' ''Academic Festival Overture'' and

Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

's ''Prize Song'', adapted and conducted by Alfred Newman.

References

External links

* * * * * {{Darryl F. Zanuck 1951 films 1951 romantic comedy films 20th Century Fox films American romantic comedy films American black-and-white films 1950s English-language films Films scored by Alfred Newman Films directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz Films shot in New Jersey American films based on plays Films based on works by Curt Goetz Medical-themed films American remakes of German films Films with screenplays by Joseph L. Mankiewicz Films produced by Darryl F. Zanuck American romantic comedy-drama films 1950s romantic comedy-drama films 1950s American films