“The Talk of the Town” is a lightly-amusing, mildly-suspenseful, engagingly-acted and solidly-constructed comic melodrama, a pleasant enough time-killer from director George Stevens and featuring a rogueish Cary Grant, a charming and plucky Jean Arthur and Ronald Colman at his most urbane and droll.

History remembers it for the fact that it was a hit upon its release in 1942, and that it collected a whopping seven Academy Award nominations. But that Oscar recognition underscores everything this “pleasant enough” picture is not.

It is a civics lesson about a justice system rigged to suit the needs of the rich, but lacks the lump in the throat pathos and “blessings of democracy” earnestness of the films of Frank Capra or Preston Sturges.

There are screwball comedy elements. But Stevens — best known for “Shane,” “Giant” and “A Place in the Sun” — lacked “the (Ernst) Lubitsch touch,” or the rat-a-tat timing and dialogue of a Howard Hawks comedy.

It’s romantic and sometimes witty, but simply not on a par with the best films of that day that covered similar emotional ground.

Heck, look at the Oscar nominees it was up against at the March 1943 Oscar ceremony –– “The Pride of the Yankees,” “The Magnificent Ambersons,” ” “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” “Mrs. Miniver,” “Now Voyager,” “To Be or Not to Be.” It didn’t win anything against that field, and with good reason.

As I watched this long and somewhat leisurely light entertainment unfold, I kept wondering why I’d never encountered it before in a college class or film society showing, never sought it out on any classic film channel. Its credits scream “classic.” But the fact that one of the screenwriters, Oscar winner Sidney Buchman, had a hand in “The Awful Truth,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and “Here Comes Mr. Jordan,” the template for “Heaven Can Wait” gives away the game.

Stevens, one of the top dramatic directors of his era, was simply out of his element here. “The Talk of the Town” never quite hits the right comic, sentimental or romantic notes accordingly.

But what does stand out after all these years is the enviable pairing of two leading men in a movie that gives Colman (“Lost Horizon”) the spotlight and a chance to shine in a rare lighthearted, if sophisticated role.

He’s Professor Michael Lightcap, an educated and urbane dean of a law school who rents a farmhouse outside of the New England mill town of Lochester. He’s planning on writing another ivory tower tome on the philosophy and history of one arcane corner of The Law.

But he shows up a day early, and home owner Nora Shelley (Arthur, of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and later “Shane”) hasn’t finished cleaning and furnishing the place. What’s more, an escaped convict has just staggered to her door in the rain.

Leopold Dilg (Where DID they get these names?) is a Lochester loudmouth, somebody noted for taking on the self-serving “rule” of fabric tycoon and town “boss” Andrew Holmes (Charles Dingle). A factory burned down and a night watchman died in the blaze. The provocateur Dilg is the likely suspect, and is promptly jailed.

His “escape” just confirms his guilt, to the locals.

“Miss Shelley, do you believe I could burn down a factory?” convinces her he must be protected from discovery. Well, that and the fact that he’s played by Cary Grant.

Dilg is “the only honest man I’ve come across in this town in 20 years,” his lawyer declares. “Naturally, they want to hang him.:

The best “screwball” moments here are the never-ending parade of interlopers — cops, lawyers (Edgar Buchanan plays the true believer assigned to Dilg’s case, over Dilg’s objections), relatives, bloodhounds and a senator who comes to tell the esteemed professor that there’s a Supreme Court seat waiting for this great legal mind, if he’s willing to accept it.

When Dilg eventually gives away his presence on the farm, Nora passes himself off as “Joseph, the gardener.” But “Joseph” is awfully outspoken on matters of the law and America’s already two-tiered justice system. The “theoretical” professor finds his thinking challenged and himself manipulated into seeing Lochester law through this “gardener’s” eyes.

There’s an amusing outing at the local ballpark, where Lightcap meets the already-made-his-mind-up judge and his ilk. He’s lured to the scene of the crime, where the grandstanding capitalist plays the victim tirelessly pursuing justice…and publicity.

There’s more to this gardener, this crime and this whole system than our legal eagle realized. And there’s a lot more to this plucky pixie who aids and abets, protects and helps guide the suave Lightcap to the light.

Rex Ingram (“Green Pastures,” “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,””Sahara” and “Your Cheatin’ Heart”) turns up as Lightcap’s “man” (manservant), a less offensive version of the servile roles African Americans were generally consigned to in the films that era, but probably meant to be funnier than Ingram plays him.

The democracy-in-action finale is rowdy but messy in its messaging. And “message” is a big deal here, as Stevens & Co. are delivering something more cynical than Capra, less certain of American forthrightness than “Casablanca.”

“What is the law? It’s a gun pointed at somebody’s head,” Dilg lectures, one of several such speeches in the picture. “All depends upon which end of the gun you stand, whether the law is just or not.”

Colman’s fun to watch and listen to, Grant gives an edge in his seemingly reluctant playing of a second banana. And Arthur is good, tickling occasionally but never coming close to the breaks-your-heart pathos of her best performances.

All of which underscores the notion that all this “Talk” adds up to is something of a mixed bag, a film with all the hallmarks of a classic but without the pace or the “touch” that might have made it much more than it is.

Rating: “approved,” some violence, innuendo

Cast: Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Ronald Colman, Edgar Buchanan, Glenda Farrell, Charles Dingle and Rex Ingram.

Credits: Directed by George Stevens, scripted by Irwin Shaw, Sidney Buchman, Dale Van Every. A Columbia Pictures release streaming on Tubi, Amazon, etc.

Running time: 1:58