One of my all-time favorite movies is "People Will Talk" with Cary Grant, Jeanne Crain and Hume Cromyn. Made in the fifties, it has a nice liberal progressive tone to it, and the sentiments are right up my alley. Cary Grant plays a OBGYN teaching at a university and with a private clinic as well. He also conducts the student orchestra at the university. Another professor is jealous of his popularity with students, and is manipulating appearances to get him fired from the faculty. He focuses on Dr. Pretorious' assistant, a man named Shunderson. Along with this plot line is a romance between the doctor and a young woman who faints in an anatomy class, goes to his clinic, discovers she is pregnant, tries to kill herself, and to keep her alive, he tells her the test was mixed up and she is not pregnant. Concerned for her, when she leaves to live with her father, Pretorious visits them, and realizes he's in love with her and she with him, and they elope. After several months married, she discovers she's pregnant, and then he tells her, in effect, it isn't his baby but he will love it as his. After being reassured that he didn't marry her to rescue her, she is more than ever devoted to him, and champions him against the professor with the grudge.
I may not seem like I've left anything out, but there is plenty of plot untold, and the story of Shunderson, which gives the movie it's surprise and moral integrity. As an example of what a doctor's Hippocratic oath should be all about, this film is worth it's weight in gold. But it is also humorous, tender, and thought provoking. This film is unforgettable.
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