People Will Talk
A very different film from the others on this list, People Will Talk is a 1951 comedy about extra-marital sex, pregnancy, suicide, murder, and accusations of medical malpractice. It’s also one of the funniest, most heart-warming films you’re ever likely to see on those topics.
Cary Grant stars as Dr. Noah Praetorius, a medical doctor who runs a clinic and gives lectures to medical students on his peculiar belief that a doctor’s primary job is to make sick people well. He becomes accidentally involved in the life of Deborah Higgins (Jeanne Crain), who faints in one of his classes. It’s soon discovered that Deborah is pregnant and unmarried, prompting the girl to walk right out into the hallway and try to shoot herself.
After Praetorius saves her life, she vanishes, but not before realizing that she’s fallen in love with the good doctor. The rest of the plot involves Praetorius’s eventual courtship of Deborah and their marriage, complicated when he has to face accusations of medical malpractice from Professor Elwell (Hume Cronyn).
People Will Talk raises a surprising number of contemporary issues, treating them with humanity and love rather than seeking to condemn. Issues like pregnancy outside of marriage and attempted suicide were topics often viewed with disdain in the 1950s, but even today films tend to take a much darker, more moralistic view, even if we’re willing to actually grapple with the problems. People Will Talk makes the case for universal humanity and against witch-hunting moralism: that the role of doctors is to make sick people well and that the role of human beings is to love one another and treat each other with understanding.