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Have you seen this movie? Please watch first if you hold surprise and uncertainty in higher esteem than storycraft.
Noah Pretorius Flips the Script
The Doctor's professional standing in the medical community is going to be risked by his associations in his personal life. Living by his personal and professional code, Noah navigates his life between his caring of patients (not treating disease—but making sick people well) and caring for his own emotional well-being when he searches his own heart. The experiences of others coming into his life put his own career and life into clearer focus.
The movie opens with the antagonist, a nemesis named Dr. Elwell (Hume Cronyn), who is wonderfully small-minded and underhanded enough for us to dislike him in the opening scene. Get that name, which sounds a lot like “ill-well.” Elwell's first interaction is with the great character actor Margaret Hamilton, whom you may remember from the Wizard of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West. Her role is well-chosen too. They conspire about Dr. Pretorious and their wanting to learn more about "Shunderson" and we are left to wonder who the doctor and Shunderson really are too. We don't even meet Dr. Pretorious or Shunderson until seven minutes into the story but we've heard enough about both of them to pique our interest and be a bit suspicious.
Next scene we meet Dr. Pretorious and Shunderson (Finlay Currie) and we soon meet Deborah Higgins (Jeanne Crain). She faints during an impromptu lecture on anatomy by Dr. Noah Pretorious--given in Dr. Elwell's class when he's MIA because he's busy trying to undermine Noah's standing in the medical and university community.
It all builds up into parallel plotlines that will intersect in a board of regents trial of the actions of Dr. Pretorious and we learn the motivations of character--not actor's character but the character of a man with morality guiding him as he seeks the answers to the qustions he faces. He definitely looks at the world from a different prespective.
When watching People Will Talk for the umpteenth time, I am vexed by the same reoccurring question in my mind. Why am I so attracted to this character of Dr. Noah Pretorious and why does this story keep me involved? Noah is a very philosophical man and he does question many situations that most of us just accept as is. Why is word he uses often, he is always searching. But the story is about how he gets flummoxed by his feelings and how his life is changed (and he does the changing) by it.
When I watch it, I too ask why. Why would he fall in love with Deborah when he knew she was pregnant by another man? In the Fifties sensibliites he even cautions her about them, the social norms that she would face being unmarried and pregnant with a child out-of-wedlock; She's broken society's rules about this sort of thing. But we are revealed to Noah's character, his feelings, and what touches his heart. Noah is one who will buck conventions at every available opportunity, so his falling in love with Deborah isn't that big a drop once he's confronted with himself. Note how and why Deborah will call him a "pompous know-it-all."
Then there's Shunderson, who we see from Noah's perspective, is quiet and kindly, but perceived to be threatening and strange by those who don't know him. It is apparent that Dr. Pretorious has a unique connection to him, but we don't learn why until the third act. Shunderson's secret is the tale I wait the whole movie to hear again.
Be on the lookout for People Will Talk. Perfect title, by the way.