People Will Talk

Somehow Joseph L. Mankiewicz turned in this lacklustre effort between two enduring classics, All About Eve and Julius Caesar. Go figure. And it’s a rare stinker for Cary Grant, too, who looks ten years older than he will eight years later in N by NW. This is in many respects a quality production, but none of the parts fit together, and the tone wobbles all over the place. I guess the point of the story is a great but unconventional man being assaulted but not brought down by the whispers of the little people. Cary Grant wears the role of Dr. Praetorius like an ill-fitting suit, and Cary Grant is all about perfect fit. I suspect the estimable but mysterious doctor was meant to be Mankiewicz’s admiring self-portrait. He wishes. This smart, sympathetic, multitalented windbag is no one ever encountered in real life. Apparently the film is esteemed for its bold topicality within in its McCarthyite time, and for the dash with which Mankiewicz salts the script with his contrarian opinions, but it does not hold together or hold up. (1951, dvd, n.) *5*