This past weekend I watched the movie The Talk of the Town with Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, and Ronald Colman. I found this movie, among many other good ones, free on Tubi. It is also currently free on YouTube.

I had seen it before as a suggested move but ignored it, thinking it was a drama. After watching it, I asked myself, “What took me so long to watch this one?!”

I loved this movie and while I always love Cary Grant, I once again loved Ronald Colman who I first saw in The Prisoner of Zenda earlier this year.

This movie starts with a fire at a factory where a man dies. Cary, portraying Leopold Dilg, is arrested for arson and murder.

Soon he’s breaking out of jail and escaping through the woods on a rainy night. He makes his way in the dark toward a small house while dogs hunt him down. The name of the house is Sweetbrook and there is a woman inside getting it ready — maybe for a guest.

Leopold breaks in the door, startling the woman.

“Miss Shelley,” he says. “Please…let me…” And then he faints and falls down the stairs.

Miss Shelley wakes him up with a bucket full of water and he asks if she can stay at the house, which he knows is a rental. She tells him he can’t stay because she knows he has escaped jail. There is a knock on the door before she can finish explaining and she tells him to run upstairs and hide.

There is a Professor Michael Lightcap at the door and he’s standing in the rain. He reminds her that he’s rented the house out and he’s here to stay. Miss Shelley, whose first name is Nora, panics because Leopold is hiding upstairs and she doesn’t want the professor to find him.

Things will get more complicated as she makes up an excuse to stay in the house overnight to make sure the professor doesn’t find Leopold.

Complications just keep arising as Nora offers to become the professor’s secretary and housekeeper during his stay, a senator arrives to tell Professor Lightcap he’s up for nomination to the United States Supreme Court, and Leopold walks down one morning to argue about the role of the law in society and Nora has to introduce him as the gardener.

This is a non-stop movie full of hilarious mix-ups, near misses, and a love-triangle that won’t be resolved until the very last minute, literally, of the movie.

As I said above, I loved this movie.

It was engaging, funny, witty, and captivating. Mixed in all the lighthearted moments were a few philosophical moments about law and justice.

Jean Arthur was delightful as Nora Shelley, always quickly rescuing the day just at the last moment, taking care of both Leopold and the professor.

Ronald Colman pulled off the staunch, uptight professor well and it was fun to see him “let down  his hair” a bit later in the film. He didn’t let down his hair. It’s just a saying, of course.

Cary walked the line between an aggressive rebel and a falsely accused victim, putting his usual romantic charm on the backburner for most of the film and bringing it out in more subtle moments. This was a movie where he wasn’t a pursuing a woman as much as he was his own freedom and justice.

I spent much of the last half of the movie wondering which one of the men Nora was actually falling for and I think she was doing the same thing. She’d gathered affection for both of them but wasn’t sure if either of them had for her.

This movie was nominated for seven Oscars but it was about the same time that America started the war so more “patriotic” movies got the nod that year. Ironically the best picture went to Mrs. Minier, which was set in England, however.

According to TCM, even without the wins, The Talk of the Town “still marked an important moment in the careers of its stars Cary Grant and Ronald Colman.”

For Cary, it was a new movie after not working for a year and he was nominated for an Oscar as well. He didn’t win the Oscar but he did have his name legally changed  his name from Archibald Alexander Leach, became an American citizen and married heiress Barbara Hutton.

Colman was 51 at the time and needed a spark to reinvent his career. The Talk of the Town worked and he went on to star in Random Harvest, which earned him another Oscar nomination. He lost that to James Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy, but still kept him at a high point in his career. Films such as Kismet (1944) and Champagne for Caesar (1950).  He also finally earned his Oscar for portraying the delusional Shakespearean actor in A Double Life (1947).

I found it interesting to read that there was tension between Grant and Colman since both were used to being the lead actor and that tension was written into the script as they aggressively bantered back and forth with each other.

I also was fascinated to learn that two endings were filmed — one with Jean Arthur choosing Cary and the other with Colman. The director allowed the preview audiences to choose who she ended up with.

Trivia:

• filming was to begin on January 17, 1942, the day Hollywood learned the sad news of Carole Lombard’s death in a plane crash. Stevens halted work on the set and sent both cast and crew home.
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• Screenwriter Sidney Buchman (who co-wrote the script with Irwin Shaw) was blacklisted in the 1950s. Consequently, Buchman, one of the men who penned Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), left the U.S. and began working in Fox’s European division. Buchman would remain in France until his death in 1975.

When the professor is unconscious on the floor, Tilney (Rex Ingram) asks Sam if he is a doctor. Ironically, Rex Ingram was himself a trained physician in real life.

Cary Grant and Ronald Colman were both paid at least $100,000 for their work in the film. Jean Arthur, who was in Harry Cohn’s doghouse and just coming off suspension, was only paid $50,000.

Whilst many characters find Leopold Dilg’s penchant for adding an egg to his borscht unique (so much so that it becomes a means of determining his whereabouts), it was not an uncommon practice to add an egg to borscht in Poland and in Mennonite communities in Eastern Europe.

A radio theatre presentation of The Talk of the Town (1942) was broadcast on CBS radio on the Lux Radio Theatre on 5/17/1943 with Cary Grant, Ronald Colman, and Jean Arthur recreating their roles from the movie. It’s a 60-minute adaptation of the movie.

Nora tells the professor that he is, “as whiskered as the Smith Brothers.” This refers to a brand of cough drops with an illustration of the Smith Brothers on the front, both of whom have a beard. First introduced in 1852, they remained the most popular brand for a century.

Memorable quotes:

Well, it’s a form of self-expression. Some people write books. Some people write music. I make speeches on street corners.

– Leopold Dilg

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.

– Leopold Dilg

Stop saying “Leopold” like that, tenderly. It sounds funny. You can’t do it with a name like Leopold.

– Leopold Dilg

This is your law and your finest possession – it makes you free men in a free country. Why have you come here to destroy it? If you know what’s good for you, take those weapons home and burn them! And then think… think of this country and of the law that makes it what it is. Think of a world crying for this very law! And maybe you’ll understand why you ought to guard it.  – Michael Lightcap

He’s the only honest man I’ve come across in this town in 20 years. Naturally, they want to hang him. – Sam Yates

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Sources:

TCM.com https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/92288/the-talk-of-the-town#articles-reviews?articleId=187407