Talk of The Town (1942), dir. George Stevens
The Cube, Dove St S, Avon, Bristol BS2 8JD
Sunday 25 November 2018, 2.45 – 5pm
Tickets: £8/£5 Concessions, plus £1.50 transaction fee
The Cube Cinema asks for £1 life-time membership fee, payable on the door. Becoming a member helps support this amazing, volunteer-run community cinema and invests in Bristol’s local cinema culture.
THIS EVENT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED
Rating: U
Running time: 1hr 56mins
This sparkling mix of social drama, comedy and romance stars Cary Grant as Leopold Dilg. Wrongfully accused of arson and murder, Leopold escapes from prison and hides out in the home of his childhood sweetheart, Nora (Jean Arthur). But there’s a problem – she’s just rented the house to the distinguished Professor Lightcap (Ronald Colman), who is about to be nominated for a seat on the Supreme Court. As Leopold and Lightcap both start falling in love with Nora, they also strike up an unexpected friendship. With an introduction by Kathrina Glitre (UWE Film Studies).
Much of the film’s appeal stems from the love triangle, reuniting Grant and Arthur after their captivating pairing in Only Angels Have Wings (1939). Leopold and Lightcap seem equally fascinated with each other, though, as the Professor’s philosophical ideals about the law clash with Leopold’s first-hand experience of ‘justice’ and political corruption. If opposites attract, then Leopold and Lightcap are the odd couple in this romantic comedy.
It’s also a rare opportunity to see Grant play a working-class character; with a name like Dilg and a love of borscht, Leopold is presumably also of immigrant parentage. Opposite the cut-glass tones of Ronald Colman, Grant seems all the more democratically ‘American’. He plays Leopold as constantly hungry, forthright and unafraid to speak his mind. It’s a significant contrast to his work for Hitchcock – although the film’s opening montage plays with the new-found possibilities of Grant’s dangerous darker side.
Read more on IMDb.com
Contributor
Kathrina Glitre is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol. She likes to credit her career to Cary Grant, since he inspired the PhD research which lead to her first book, Hollywood Romantic Comedy: States of the Union (Manchester University Press, 2006). She is currently working on a project on screen acting, including essays on ‘Cary Grant: Acting style and genre in classical Hollywood cinema’ (2012) and ‘Character and the star vehicle: The impact of casting Cary Grant’ (forthcoming). Occasionally, she manages to write about other things too, including a chapter on colour for Neo-Noir (Wallflower Press, 2009), which she also co-edited. @UWEfilmculture
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