Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Year Released: 1951
Rating: 2.0
Righteous and open-minded Dr. Praetorius (Cary Grant) falls in love with - and marries - a patient (Jeanne Crain) who's pregnant with another man's child all the while being investigated by a McCarthy-ish professor (Hume Cronyn) who's been actively digging up dirt on him, particularly his friendship with a man with a troubled past (Finlay Currie). This is, in essence, a coded polemic against the closed-mindedness of the Red Scare and it allows Grant to philosophize the whole way through (on everything from the human condition to the quality of butter and sauerkraut) making him an almost untouchable saint akin to Joseph, who married the immaculately pregnant Mary. The romantic interaction with Crain - who I find to be terrible in here, staring off screen artificially as if in 'deep thought' - is strained (it never comes across that he loves her as much as he pities her, and pity as far as I'm concerned is not romantic love), but the final 'trial' with Cronyn is of interest because of Shunderson's Story, which might sound a tad ridiculous on paper but is convincing on screen.
