Yes, People
May Talk-With Cary Grant’s People Will
Talk In Mind
DVD Review
By Bradley
Fox
People Will Talk, starring Cary
Grant, Jeanne Crain, Walter Slezak, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1951
No question, and both parties would
agree, did agree that one of the few things that held them together during
their short finally acrimonious fling was their mutual love of old film, films produced from their youth
time of the 1950s and before. Those “both parties” being Sam Lowell and Melinda
Loring, members in good standing of the Riverdale Class of 1964, who had been
“reunited” if that was the right word as they prepared to commemorate their
fiftieth anniversary class reunion (celebrate is too strong and positive a word
for such an occasion fifty years out). We will get to the details of how that
now acknowledged ill-fated fling got off the ground in a moment.
Since this is a review of sorts of
one of the movies that they watched together on some weekend night when their
stars were aligned a little mention of the way they were able to through the
wonders of modern communication technology view the film is in order. Sam had
been for the previous decade a member of Netflix and for a couple of years
prior to their meeting again had been on a black and white film tear since
Netflix had a wealth of such old time material either on DVD or through
streaming. The night they watched the film, Cary Grant and Jeanne Crain’s People Will Talk, a title that had the
virtue if it was a virtue of stating what their fellow classmates presumably
did when they heard after the reunion that Sam and Melinda were an “item” to
use the term of the high school times to signify a serious relationship, all
Sam had to do was a little mumbo-jumbo with his remote and follow the prompts
on the screen and there they were ready to enjoy the film at their leisure.
(Sam did not remember whether they had the standard popcorn and soda that night
that had gone with watching films at the now long closed Strand Theater over on
Lyons Street off of Riverdale Square in their youth.)
Strictly speaking a review (of sorts,
remember) of this Cary Grant film does not require us to go into the details of
the failed Sam Lowell-Melinda Loring romance but the way Sam explained one of
the issues raised in the film and the way Zack James, a mutual friend of Sam
and mine, who told it to me I thought it best to bring in a short summary for
the curious, or the salacious as the case may be. The long and short of it was
that Sam and Melinda had never gotten together in high school, period. Sam had
been interested in the popular and pretty Melinda but had found out through his
schoolboy grapevine that she was an “ice queen” meaning by the term that Sam
and his corner boys who hung out at Tonio’s Pizza Parlor used at the time that
she was, one, “spoken for” by Jack Jenkins the great halfback of the
championship Riverdale High Warriors (she had been head cheerleader junior and
senior year), two, was not interested in guys like Sam who had two million
facts packed in their brains but with no real social skills, and three, she was
definitely not interested in raggedy-assed guys (Sam’s expression) from the
wrong side of the tracks, meaning guys with no dough to show her a good time.
So that was that in 1964.
Fast forward to 2013 at a time when
Sam having reconciled, or having thought he had reconciled, with a lot of his
anger at the hassle of growing up poor in Riverdale and having made his peace
with his family from which he had been estranged for various periods over the
years since high school, decided that that he would check out his 50th
anniversary class reunion with the idea of attending the event. Naturally,
which is probably true of every high school class in the world since Adam and
Eve maybe before somebody, someone who stayed around the town organizes these
kind of events. That was the case here when Delores Riley put things together and
given the wonders of modern technology he had signed up for the class reunion
website she set up. Easy enough. Once on the site he noticed that Melinda
Loring’s name (females listed under their maiden names and married names if
such was the case in parentheses) was among those who had signed up.
Sam, having been three times divorced
and “single” at that moment noticed that Melinda had been twice divorced and
“single” as well so on a whim, no, more like a hope he decided to send her a
private e-mail to see if she remembered him. They struck up an e-mail exchange that
lasted until the reunion where they finally met up again, and they left the
hall together that night. Here is the strange part, here is why they both
thought that reunion night that the stars had been aligned. Sam had gotten
treacherous misinformation though the grapevine (that damn Ducky Drake who he
had relied on to find out if she was “spoken for” had his own interest in her
and sabotaged him). Before Jack Jenkins scooped her up she had told him she was
very interested in Sam, loved that in class he had those two million facts to
impress the teacher (and her) with. That formed the basis for their trying to
recapture those long ago lost moments.
Of course we know, since I have
already mentioned it, as Sam said to Zach, “you can’t go home again,” and their
short fling got hung up on the tender mercies that Melinda wanted to get
married and Sam, not opposed to living together, had had with three failed
marriages enough of court settlements (although he was a lawyer), alimony,
child support and the killer college tuitions. But while their flame glowed
they had those good times watching movies (among other things best left to the
imagination) which brings us back full circle to the review of the movie, this
one in particular since it touched Melinda personally.
In the movie Cary Grant played a
doctor whose unorthodox treatment ideas caused a stir among his colleagues, one
ass professor in particular. Doctor Noah, Cary Grant’s role, was what today
would be called a holistic medical man but then something of a quack (not an uncommon
designation today for that matter) for his unorthodox methods and his dark past
out in the boondocks where he had practiced before coming to the big time
university. Jean Crain played Deborah a young woman auditing some medical
studies classes who turned out to be pregnant, very pregnant as we used to say
back then when we heard about girls getting “knocked up.” The problem for
Deborah in 1951, maybe anytime although the mores have changed considerably
since then, was that she was not married, and could not be married to the father
since he had died in the service (remember Korea). The whole thing looked
pretty desperate since she could not tell her ailing single parent father for
it would kill him. But Cary came like a white knight to the rescue. Through a
series of machinations he wound up marrying her. Moreover he sailed through that
academic investigation about his prior practices out in the boondocks with
flying if improbable colors.
After viewing a film Sam and Melinda,
if the film warranted it not all did, if it touched something would discuss
their respective takes on what they had just seen. Sam asked Melinda if she had
any thoughts on the film adding that he thought there was a certain weirdness to
the film especially around Noah’s “bodyguard-servant” who carried over some secret
from that dark past. Melinda hesitated and then said she couldn’t believe not
having seen a Cary Grant movie for a long time how surprised she was at how smoothly
he spoke and how he carried himself with such grace. Sam agreed. Then Melinda
told Sam how she had had a schoolgirl crush on Cary Grant ever since she saw
him with Katherine Hepburn in The Philadelphia
Story and gave a little blush that Sam thought was endearing.
Melinda then got very quiet for a moment
but Sam could tell that she had something on her mind, although he assumed it
was not related to anything in the film since he thought they had basically
worn that subject out. The she blurred out, “Good thing Deborah had Noah to bail
her out, to marry her and not leave her in the lurch, no leave her to have to
go to “Aunt Emma’s.” Sam let out a slight chuckle at that remark since he knew
exactly what she meant. The film, both had agreed, had taken on something that was
a social taboo in their neighborhoods back in Riverdale in the 1950s and
1960s-the plight of the unwed mother, particularly in their case high school
unwed mothers. That “Aunt Emma” tag meant that in Sam’s term, some girl
probably out of ignorance (the guy too) didn’t know how curb their hormones,
more importantly didn’t know about “protection” either because they had learned,
erroneously many times, about sex and what it was about on the street since parents
then wouldn’t tell their kids “squat” about sex or the churches raised fire and
brimstone about even talking about the matter leaving everybody clueless. So
every once in a while, more often than you would have thought, you would find
out about some girl whose family was still in town but what had not been seen
around for a while, several months. Upon inquiry the usual answer was that the
girl had gone to see an aunt. Hence the common expression, “she’s gone to see
Aunt Emma.” That night thought Melinda broke down and cried a little as she explained
to Sam that her own younger sister, Lorna, had had to go see “Aunt Emma,” had
had to give up her baby too which she never really got over despite a fairly
happy marriage and kids later. Sam consoled Melinda a bit as was common when
they were in the sunnier days of their relationship before it all turned sour.
As for me this is one time when the movie only gets a so-so rating, maybe three
stars, but as far as being socially relevant it rates five stars, no question.
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