Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941 film)

• Carole Lombard: Anne Kraus Heimer / Smith
• Robert Montgomery: David Smith
• Gene Raymond Jeff Custer
• Jack Carson: Chuck Benson
• Philip Merivale: Mr. Custer
• Lucile Watson: Mrs. Custer
• William Tracy: Sammy
• Charles Halton: Mr. Deever
• Esther Dale: Mrs. Kraus Heimer
• Betty Compson: Gertie
• Patricia Farr: Gloria
• William Edmunds: Owner of Lucy's
• Adele Pearce: Lily

Mr. and Mrs. Smith is an American screwball comedy by Alfred Hitchcock in 1941., Starring Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery.

Action

The marriage of wealthy New York lawyer David Smith with his wife Anne is based on a complex and sometimes bizarre web of rules and regulations. So allowed to leave in the case of a marriage dispute neither the room until the dispute is settled, which may mean that Mr. Smith for days his office can not visit - much to the annoyance of his law firm.

Another rule allows two each month to be able to ask a question that must be answered by the other honest. When Anne one day the question of whether he would marry her again if he had to choose again, David responds that he probably would not do this because he too miss his freedom. Anne takes this initially snubbed on, then forgives him but apparently.

When David returns to his office after the marriage dispute, emerged an official of the city in which they were married, and David explains that his marriage is legally invalid due to an annexation. David tells Anne at first nothing of it, but Anne learns by chance of the invalidity of their marriage. While they expected that David makes her a renewed proposal of marriage, David hesitates this moment addition, more and more, in order to suspense. When Anne thinks he wanted to actually marry a second time, she leaves him angrily and Bandelt with David's best friend Jeff, with whom she forges even marriage plans. David strives initially unsuccessful, Anne recapture, trying to sabotage their planned marriage with Jeff before his parents, the two finally travels to their holiday in a ski lodge after playing effectively a desperate, drunken husband in delirium and is of Anne and Jeff health care. But Anne is stubborn - almost to the end of the film.

Background

RKO Pictures secured in November 1939, the rights to a script by Norman Krasna, but still had no title for his screenplay. So the project (I Seen You With? , And among other things, Who Was That Lady So To Wed, Here We Go Again! , The Lady Said No! , That Was My Wife! , Temporarily Yours and Slightly Married ) ran times under different working titles until the studio finally decided for Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Carole Lombard, previously moved to RKO short, the script read a little later and persuaded Hitchcock to direct the film. This was less than enthusiastic in their own words from the basic idea of ​​the genre of screwball comedy and the characters and held therefore strictly to the script: "I did not understand the kind of people that were shown in the movie, I have the scenes photographed, as they were written. "

For the male lead role of Mr. Smith Lombard and Hitchcock first tried unsuccessfully to win Cary Grant. After a series of rejections by other movie stars like Fredric March and George Brent one weeks was committed before filming Robert Montgomery for the role. His salary exceeded even those of Hitchcock - 110 000 U.S. dollars per week, he received $ 40,000 more.

Filming ran from September 5 to November 2, 1940. The scene in which a conversation with Gene Raymond is complicated by the sounds of a toilet, prepared the studio worried. The Hays Code was very strict in relation to the representation of toilets and their noises. To avoid a possible censorship, Hitchcock distorted the Spülgeräusch so much that you could also consider it the sound of a steam heating.

Lombard allowed on the first day of shooting a joke with Hitchcock ( who himself often actors and other employees teased ): You had three cows come into the studio and hung them signs with the names of the three main characters to. So she answered the famous quote from Hitchcock, according to the " all actors cattle" were.

The very unusual for Hitchcock comedy was enthusiastically received by the audience. On December 30, 1940, she was selected from a test audience in New Rochelle, New York among the best films of the year. After its premiere on January 20, 1941 in Radio City Music Hall in New York City, the performances were sold out the first nine days.

The Look magazine wrote about the film: " The amazing thing about this film is that Hitchcock has applied the same strategy that otherwise his melodramas that make a freeze the blood, featuring [...] Here they are again, his distinctive trademark - the same relaxed way, the same head-over - head - final, the same way of seeing that seems to come from the corner of his eye, the same director who acts as non-governmental. Also, the effect is the same bottom line: even a Hitchcock - hit ".

Reviews

" One of the few comedies of Alfred Hitchcock, brought in a light style, with loose performers entertaining to turbulence. "

" The special Hitchcock touch is there. "

Cameo

In the middle of the film Hitchcock has a cameo. After 41 minutes he comes opposite Robert Montgomery in front of a building.