The Talk of the Town (1942)

The Talk of the Town

1942 | 118 minutes | 7.3 ★ (99)

Comedy Drama Romance

Overview
Hilarity ensues when a falsely accused fugitive from justice hides at the house of his childhood friend, which she has recently rented to a high-principled law teacher.
Release Date
20 August 1942
DirectingGeorge Stevens
Budget
$1,000,000.00
Revenue
$1,100,000.00
Stars
Cary Grant Jean Arthur Ronald Colman

Videos

User Reviews

John Chard

16 May 2024

What is the law? It's a gun pointed at somebody's head. All depends upon which end of the gun you stand, whether the law is just or not. The Talk of the Town is directed by George Stevens and Stevens co-produces with Fred Guiol. It's adapted by Dale Van Every, Irwin Shaw and Sidney Buchman from a story by Sidney Harmon. It stars Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Ronald Colman, Rex Ingram and Edgar Buchanan. Leopold Dilg (Grant), a radical and political thinking man, is accused of burning down a mill and causing the death of a foreman in the subsequent fire. On trial for his life, he decides to escape from jail and makes his way to the home of his school day friend Nora Shelley (Arthur). However, his timing couldn't be worse, for Nora has taken in a tenant for the summer, a law professor, Michael Lightcap (Colman). Passing him off as the gardener, Nora has to hope that Lightcap doesn't cop on to Dilg being an escaped prisoner. But with both men feeling each other out, and both having designs on Nora, something is going to have to give. Though nominated in seven Academy Award categories, "The Talk of the Town" won none. Perhaps more surprisingly is that of those seven nominations, none were for acting or direction. Surprising because the film is impeccably acted and smoothly directed. It was, however, rightly nominated for Best Picture (it lost out to William Wyler's "Mrs. Miniver") and was a big smash at the box office. The public quickly warmed to the blend of comedy with intelligent politico musings. The set up is safe, a potential love triangle - with the three leads playing off each other sublimely - is nicely played out whilst the two men partake in discussions about the law, the applications of such and its moral worth. The comedy that comes in fits and starts is not so much of the screwball variety, but more that of ebullience born out of beautifully written sequences. Some argue that the plot is heavily reliant on contrivances (how many 1940s comedies aren't?), but ultimately that is easily forgiven given the quality on show across the board. 8/10

More Like This

Dirty Dancing

Expecting the usual tedium that accompanies a summer in the Catskills with her family, 17-year-old Frances 'Baby' Houseman is surprised to find...

Anatomy of a Murder

Semi-retired Michigan lawyer Paul Biegler takes the case of Army Lt. Manion, who murdered a local innkeeper after his wife claimed that he raped...

Pretty Woman

While on a business trip in Los Angeles, Edward Lewis, a millionaire entrepreneur who makes a living buying and breaking up companies, picks up a...

Match Point

Chris, a former tennis player, looks for work as an instructor. He meets Tom Hewett, a wealthy young man whose sister Chloe falls in love with...

Freaks

A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him...

Bad Education

Two children, Ignacio and Enrique, know love, the movies and fear in a religious school at the beginning of the 1960s. Father Manolo, director of...

Donnie Darko

After narrowly escaping a bizarre accident, a troubled teenager is plagued by visions of a large bunny rabbit that manipulates him to commit a...

The Secret Life of Words

A touching story of a deaf girl who is sent to an oil rig to take care of a man who has been blinded in a terrible accident. The girl has a special...

Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself

The strange comedy film of two close brothers; one, Wilbur, who wants to kill himself, and the other, Harbour, who tries to prevent this. When...

K-PAX

Prot is a patient at a mental hospital who claims to be from a far away planet. His psychiatrist tries to help him, only to begin to doubt his own...

The Good German

An American journalist arrives in Berlin just after the end of World War Two. He becomes involved in a murder mystery surrounding a dead GI who...

Lucky Number Slevin

Slevin is mistakenly put in the middle of a personal war between the city’s biggest criminal bosses. Under constant watch, Slevin must try not to...

Amélie

At a tiny Parisian café, the adorable yet painfully shy Amélie accidentally discovers a gift for helping others. Soon Amelie is spending her days...

Braveheart

Enraged at the slaughter of Murron, his new bride and childhood love, Scottish warrior William Wallace slays a platoon of the local English lord's...

To Be or Not to Be

During the Nazi occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.

The Wages of Fear

In a run-down South American town, four men are paid to drive trucks loaded with nitroglycerin into the jungle through to the oil field...

Hotel Rwanda

Inspired by true events, this film takes place in Rwanda in the 1990s when more than a million Tutsis were killed in a genocide that went mostly...

Dead Poets Society

At an elite, old-fashioned boarding school in New England, a passionate English teacher inspires his students to rebel against convention and seize...

Arsenic and Old Lace

Mortimer Brewster, a newspaper drama critic, playwright, and author known for his diatribes against marriage, suddenly falls in love and gets...

Volver

Three generations of women survive the east wind, fire, insanity, superstition and even death by means of goodness, lies and boundless vitality.

Cast

Crew