Movies
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (RKO 1942, Carole Lombard, Robert Montgomery)
Mr and Mrs Smith was Alfred Hitchcock’s only comedy without suspense elements and it is a battle-of-the-sexes screwball with Carole Lombard Lombard and Robert Montgomery. A happily bantering married couple discover that a legal loophole has ified their wedding; Montgomery’s wry refusal to hold a quick ceremony infuriates Lombard and leaves the door open for other possibilities.
Lombard and Hitchcock were great pals, and this is the production on which Lombard tweaked Hitchcock’s statement about actors being cattle by corralling on the set three calves with the stars’ names hung on them. This was Lombard’s penultimate film, followed by Ernst Lubitsch’s To Be or Not to Be (1942), before her untimely death.
production details
USA | RKO | 95 minutes | 1941
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Script: Norman Krasna,
cast
Lucile Watson as Mrs. Custler
Robert Montgomery as David
Emma Dunn as Martha
Charles Halton as Mr. Deever
William Tracy as Sammy
William Edmunds as Proprietor Lucy’s
Carole Lombard as Ann
Gene Raymond as Jeff
Jack Carson as Chuck
Philip Merivale as Mr. Custler
Esther Dale as Mrs. Krausheimer
Betty Compson as Gertie
Patricia Farr as Gloria
Pamela Blake as Lily