Cary Grant has a curious role in this film - he is a labor agitator. He has been stirring up matters in his native town against the local big business factory, owned by Charles Dingle. Then, there is a fire at the factory - an arson fire. Grant is suspected and arrested for the arson (and subsequently for the murder of Tom Tyler, the factory foreman who is missing and presumed dead). Grant manages to escape capture, and heads for the home of one of his oldest friends - Jean Arthur. What he does not realize is that Arthur has rented the house for the summer to a law professor of note, Ronald Colman. Arthur is willing to hide Grant in the attic, but Colman does arrive, only to find that the sheriff and a pack of hounds are at his door (and due to some unexpected clothing switching the hounds chase Colman up a tree).
Starting with this situation, THE TALK OF THE TOWN blossoms into a neat little comedy triangle that tackles the issues of what is law, and what do we expect of it? Colman's Professor Lightcap is a quiet judicial scholar - a man of books. Probably too many books. Later in the film, Grant's Leopold Dilg tells Arthur's Nora Shelley that he's looked at the legal tomes Colman reads (and upon which his judicial philosophy is based) and they are intelligent, comprehensible, "and dead." Colman, in short, is a legal conservative, and so has a tendency to support the status quo. He is also an appointee (awaiting confirmation) to the U.S. Supreme Court. All this is hardly promising for Grant and Arthur, who hope that Colman can assist them in saving Grant from prison or worse. Grant's attempts at getting Colman into the real world is limited by his inability to appear in public (he is a wanted man, after all). But Arthur, and Grant's attorney Edgar Buchanan, are capable to take Colman around the town and make him realize that Grant has not been given a fair chance to defend himself.
The film concentrates on Colman's slowly becoming a realist - seeing that the opinions of one hundred years of precedents are not the be all or end all of justice. It begins when he meets Dingle, and then the trial judge (who seems all too prejudiced against Grant before the trial - not to mention too chummy with the owner of the factory). As he comes down to earth, he even strips himself of his badge of ivory tower-ism - his beard, which he shaves off (much to the distress of his valet, played by a subdued but funny Rex Ingram).
I leave it to the viewers to see how Colman eventually does get Grant out of his legal difficulties. The movie is one of the few (up to that date in the 1940s) that looked at the legal system critically. The massive dislike of the townspeople towards Grant (where they all have been financially hurt by the factory fire they blame on him) makes a fair trial in that town impossible. It reminds us of the issue nowadays about media coverage of crimes where local jury pools get tainted by prejudgments of defendants thrust down their throats. Yet Colman is warned by his political friends to avoid involvement - to keep himself clean before he is confirmed. You wonder what is the value of a seat on the Supreme Court if the would-be judge cannot make sure that justice is even handed and as near pure as possible.
To me TALK OF THE TOWN may not be a great film but it is above average, and an unusual one for both male leads - for Grant in his character's personality, and for Colman for his gradual concentration less on his rivalry with Grant over Arthur as with the battle for justice. Before TWELVE ANGRY MEN came out over a decade later, TALK OF THE TOWN was the best movie about the philosophy and reality of the law (except for THE OX-BOW INCIDENT) Hollywood produced.
Starting with this situation, THE TALK OF THE TOWN blossoms into a neat little comedy triangle that tackles the issues of what is law, and what do we expect of it? Colman's Professor Lightcap is a quiet judicial scholar - a man of books. Probably too many books. Later in the film, Grant's Leopold Dilg tells Arthur's Nora Shelley that he's looked at the legal tomes Colman reads (and upon which his judicial philosophy is based) and they are intelligent, comprehensible, "and dead." Colman, in short, is a legal conservative, and so has a tendency to support the status quo. He is also an appointee (awaiting confirmation) to the U.S. Supreme Court. All this is hardly promising for Grant and Arthur, who hope that Colman can assist them in saving Grant from prison or worse. Grant's attempts at getting Colman into the real world is limited by his inability to appear in public (he is a wanted man, after all). But Arthur, and Grant's attorney Edgar Buchanan, are capable to take Colman around the town and make him realize that Grant has not been given a fair chance to defend himself.
The film concentrates on Colman's slowly becoming a realist - seeing that the opinions of one hundred years of precedents are not the be all or end all of justice. It begins when he meets Dingle, and then the trial judge (who seems all too prejudiced against Grant before the trial - not to mention too chummy with the owner of the factory). As he comes down to earth, he even strips himself of his badge of ivory tower-ism - his beard, which he shaves off (much to the distress of his valet, played by a subdued but funny Rex Ingram).
I leave it to the viewers to see how Colman eventually does get Grant out of his legal difficulties. The movie is one of the few (up to that date in the 1940s) that looked at the legal system critically. The massive dislike of the townspeople towards Grant (where they all have been financially hurt by the factory fire they blame on him) makes a fair trial in that town impossible. It reminds us of the issue nowadays about media coverage of crimes where local jury pools get tainted by prejudgments of defendants thrust down their throats. Yet Colman is warned by his political friends to avoid involvement - to keep himself clean before he is confirmed. You wonder what is the value of a seat on the Supreme Court if the would-be judge cannot make sure that justice is even handed and as near pure as possible.
To me TALK OF THE TOWN may not be a great film but it is above average, and an unusual one for both male leads - for Grant in his character's personality, and for Colman for his gradual concentration less on his rivalry with Grant over Arthur as with the battle for justice. Before TWELVE ANGRY MEN came out over a decade later, TALK OF THE TOWN was the best movie about the philosophy and reality of the law (except for THE OX-BOW INCIDENT) Hollywood produced.