|
The Talk
of the Town (1942)
In George Stevens' romantic screwball comedy:
- the comedic situations of a trio of characters
in a love triangle in a summer house rental
- the scenes of schoolteacher Nora Shelley's (Jean
Arthur) attempts to cover up and hide wrongly-convicted arsonist-fugitive
and ex-boyfriend Leopold Dilg (Cary Grant) from law professor, Supreme
Court nominee and fellow boarder Professor Michael Lightcap (Ronald
Colman)
- the explanation that his loud snoring was actually
her adenoids, proposing that he was Joseph the gardener, and covering
his picture in the paper with fried eggs
- the trial scene when the mob threatened to take over
- Lightcap's assistance to clear Dilg of his crime,
defend his rights, and uncover a frame-up with a stirring speech:
("His (Dilg's) only crime was that he had courage and spoke
his mind...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...The law must be engraved in our hearts
and practiced every minute, to the letter and spirit. It can't even
exist unless we're willing to go down into the dust and blood and
fight a battle every day of our lives to preserve it, for our neighbor
as well as ourselves")
- the ending scene in the long Supreme Court corridor
in which Nora followed Leopold and finally got her man
|
|