I have to give People Will Talk a mixed review, even though I've seen it many times and I like it. On the plus side, Cary Grant was never bad, except perhaps in his earliest films, and he's very good here, though (and I'm not sure who's to blame) he gets overly smug in his perfect-doctor guise. Many in the cast are good, including Sidney Blackmer, Walter Slezak, and the wonderful Finlay Currie as the mysterious Mr Shunderson. Others are pretty good, too, like Jeanne Crain and Hume Cronyn. Hard not to like Crain, but she has a complicated role here. Not over her head, but...well, I don't know. Cronyn is a bit too overdone as the baddie of the piece, Professor Elwell. I think if the part of the small-minded prof had been played with less bluster or fussiness, if it were not very nearly a caricature of pettiness, it may have been more effective. The story carries one along, and entertains, and in this way, it's well done, and I recommend the film for that feature alone. Personally, I couldn't buy some of its premises. I found things like not letting a pregnant girl know she's pregnant untenable. Mankiewicz asks us to accept that a doctor (albeit a "very special" one) should have these kinds of rights, because he knows best. And then Mankiewicz demonstrates that, over and over again, this superior human being does know best. And he should therefore have the right to be a kind of puppet master over the lives of the less brilliant and wise. In a way, this view is not surprising coming from a film director. Besides, Mankiewicz in particular was a producer-director whose affairs with younger actresses like Judy Garland and Linda Darnell often saw him assume the role of confessor, savior, and father figure.Cary Grant, a great actor, plays this Mankiewicz surrogate (and that's what he is) a bit smug. It's hard not to, given the lines and situations. Perhaps Mankiewicz should have given the character a few Cary Grant-ish personality flaws like vanity or peevishness, so effective in making us like Cary in other roles. Cary as a saintly figure (see also Crisis, and The Bishop's Wife) seems always a bit too willing to assume the mantle. The pluses of the film are in the better performances, in Mankiewicz's ability to tell a story with intelligence and wit, in the fact that the film covers subjects rarely if ever covered in any film before or since (which makes it seem fresh). You will likely never forget Mr Shunderson's monologue once you have heard it, and if you like classical music there's a lot of it to enjoy on the soundtrack.

If you love black & white movies and Cary Grant movies with either slap stick or witty dialogue then skip this movie. I was so excited to see it but that quickly fades. There are three story lines in one movie and all of them are a mess. There is no chemistry between Grant and Crain. There is no reason for their characters to even like each other much less fall in love in a couple days. The model train scene isn't funny and I think it intended to be. There is a weird surprise ending out of no where. (BTW Cary Grant isn't close to performing correct moves while conducting the orchestra) I liked a few minutes of the informal hearing near the end plus Cary Grant is wonderful to look at :) Because of this I gave it four stars. Would be unwatchable without him in it. If you are curious then watch it but don't watch it if you are looking for a great movie. (Try Grant in Philadelphia Story, Notorious, Bringing Up Baby etc)

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.

This is going to be a strange review because I have to admit I love this film for all the wrong reasons. I love it because I enjoy looking at it. I love looking at these faces and hearing these voices. I was just watching a particularly dreadful, stupid new slasher film for no good reason other than I pretty much watch everything when it occurred to me that certain things make a person happy and other things make a person unhappy and probably destroy a few brain cells along the way. People Will Talk makes a person happy, may improve the viewer's diction and add some vocabulary and a sense of style. I guarantee a renewed crush on Cary Grant. That smile can melt the poles far more than any period of extended solar flare activity. Forget the plot and even the message (which is a very nice one about love and respect and the undeniable fact that littleness of soul is no way to advance professionally), People Will Talk is worth your time. Most of the modern slasher gore fest is not only not worth your time, it is actually harmful in that it may make you less available to the charms of Cary and company. Do yourself and everyone you know a favor, watch People Will Talk.