The Talk of the Town is a 1942 American comedy-drama film directed by George Stevens and starring Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, and Ronald Colman, with a supporting cast featuring Edgar Buchanan and Glenda Farrell. The screenplay was written by Irwin Shaw and Sidney Buchman (adaptation by Dale Van Every) from a story by Sidney Harmon. The picture was released by Columbia Pictures. This was the second time that Grant and Arthur were paired in a film, after Only Angels Have Wings (1939).

Plot

Mill worker and political activist Leopold Dilg (Cary Grant) is accused of arson and murder, setting fire to a woolen mill, killing the mill foreman, Clyde Bracken. In the middle of the trial, Dilg escapes from jail and seeks shelter in a remote cottage owned by former schoolmate Nora Shelley (Jean Arthur), on whom he has had a crush for years. Shelley, now a schoolteacher, has rented the unoccupied cottage for the summer to distinguished law professor Michael Lightcap (Ronald Colman), who plans to use this secluded location to write a book. Both Lightcap and Dilg arrive within minutes of each other, so Shelley decides to hide Dilg in the attic.