A quarrelsome couple discovers their marriage isn't legal.
Ann [Krausheimer Smith]
David [Smith]
Gene Raymond
Jeff [Custer]
Chuck [Benson]
Philip Merivale
Mr. [Ashley] Custer
Mr. And Mrs. Smith (1941) - They're Making Believe We're Stuck!
All Fall Down (1962) - We Are Acting With Great Leniency
Mr. And Mrs. Smith (1941) - Like A Squeezed Lemon!
Mr. And Mrs. Smith (1941) - Thought I'd Left?
Mr. And Mrs. Smith (1941) - Rule Number Seven
Mr. and Mrs., No for an Answer, Who Was That Lady I Seen You With?
RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.
RKO Studios, California, USA
When Ann Smith impulsively asks her husband David whether he would marry her if he had it to do over again and he answers no, the battling Smiths begin another skirmish. David then leaves for his law office and is visited by Harry Deever, who announces that the Smiths' three-year marriage is void because of a legal technicality that existed in Ann's home town, where they were married. Deever's next stop is the Smith apartment, where he informs Ann, whom he has known since childhood, that she is not legally married. When David calls to invite Ann to Mama Lucy's, their favorite haunt before marriage, she is sure that he plans to propose to her, but he fails to pop the question, and she throws him out of the house. To support herself, Ann takes a job as a clerk at a department store, but when David follows her there and causes a commotion, she is fired. After Ann proclaims that she no longer wishes to be married to David, David's law partner, Jeff Custer, decides to reconcile the couple and arranges to have dinner with Ann at her apartment that night. When David turns up unexpectedly, Ann decides to make him jealous and finagles a date with Jeff at the Florida Club the following night. Disappointed, David returns to his men's club, where Chuck Benson, another dispossessed husband, offers to introduce him to Gertie, a "high class girl." To make Ann jealous, David suggests going to the Florida Club, but when he meets the decidedly unclassy Gertie, he gives himself a nosebleed to escape his date. David's ploy backfires, however, and a jealous Ann suggests to Jeff that they spend the night at the World's Fair. When the pair get stuck on a ferris wheel in the rain, Ann takes the soaking wet Jeff to his apartment and prescribes a glass of liquour to ward off a cold. Following Ann's instructions, the teetotaling Jeff downs one glass after another until he becomes totally inebriated, but remains "a gentleman." The next day, David waits outside Ann's apartment in a taxi. Telling the driver that he is a private detective, David instructs him to follow Ann. When she goes to Jeff's office, David bursts in and finds Jeff's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Custer, fostering a romance between their son and Ann. Although David tries to shock them by revealing intimate details of Ann's life, Jeff insists upon bringing Ann to Lake Placid to become better acquainted with his parents. At the lake, Jeff and Ann are assigned rooms in a remote cabin, where they discover that David is their neighbor. When an inebriated David passes out in the snow and feigns delirium, Ann becomes concerned and Jeff begins to doubt her commitment to marry him. Upon discovering David's ruse, Ann angrily berates him, and in response, David professes his love for her but urges Ann to marry the more sedate Jeff. After dinner that night, Ann confides to Jeff that she plans to make David hate her so that he will start a new life. Alone in her room, Ann begins to yell so that David can hear her, pretending that Jeff is seducing her. Running into her room, David grabs Ann by the head, and when Jeff refuses to defend her honor, she becomes hysterical. At that moment, Jeff's parents enter the room and forbid him to marry Ann. After Ann walks out on Jeff, she and David battle their way to a reconciliation.
Lucile Watson
Mrs. Custer
Charles Halton
Mr. [Harry] Deever
Esther Dale
Mrs. Krausheimer
Betty Compson
Patricia Farr
William Edmunds
Proprietor Lucy's
Adele Pierce
Passer-by who tips his hat to David Smith
Alec Craig
Thomas, clerk
Francis Compton
Mr. Flugle
Robert E. Keane
Section manager
Jack Gardner
Elevator boy
Ralph Sanford
Store checker
Murray Alper
Harold, driver
Georgia Carroll
Ralph Dunn
James Flavin
Waiter captain
Ronnie Rondell
Jim Pierce
Barbara Wooddell
Secretary to David
Beatrice Maude
Secrtary to Jeff
Allen Wood
Ernie Alexander
Stan Taylor
Harry E. Edington
Stand-in
Betty Hall
Norman Krasna
Story and Screenplay
Bob Marlow
Van Nest Polglase
Darrell Silvera
Dewey Starkey
Harry Stradling
John E. Tribby
Vernon L. Walker
Edward Ward
L. P. Williams
Art Director Associate
Movie Clip
All Fall Down (1962) - We Are Acting With Great Leniency In fictional Key Bonita (really Key West, a hangout of the original author James Leo Herlihy), director John Frankenheimer brings young Clint (Brandon DeWilde), from Cleveland, to jailer Albert Paulsen, who holds his ne'er-do-well brother Berry-Berry (Warren Beatty, his first scene), in All Fall Down, 1962.
Mr. And Mrs. Smith (1941) - Rule Number Seven David (Robert Montgomery) and Ann (Carole Lombard) Smith practice total honesty according to their "rule number seven" over breakfast in Alfred Hitchcock's Mr. And Mrs. Smith, 1941.
Mr. And Mrs. Smith (1941) - They're Making Believe We're Stuck! Determined to prove a point to her husband, Ann (Carole Lombard) insists that his friend (Gene Raymond) take her to the fair, where the parachute ride malfunctions, in Alfred Hitchcock's comedy Mr. And Mrs. Smith, 1941.
Mr. And Mrs. Smith (1941) - Like A Squeezed Lemon! Having each been pretending not to know that they're not legally married, Ann (Carole Lombard) and David (Robert Montgomery) Smith join the inevitable battle in the Alfred Hitchcock comedy Mr. And Mrs. Smith, 1941.
Mr. And Mrs. Smith (1941) - Thought I'd Left? Lawyer David Smith (Robert Montgomery) plays a trick on wife Ann (Carole Lombard), pretending to violate their agreement to never leave the bedroom with a quarrel unresolved, which has kept them sequestered for three days already, early in Alfred Hitchcock's Mr. And Mrs. Smith, 1941.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith - (Original Trailer) A quarrelsome couple discovers their marriage isn't legal in Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941), a romantic comedy directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
A curio from the waning days of Hollywood's screwball comedy cycle, the RKO production Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941) is pleasant enough on its own merits, but piques the interest of contemporary film fans for two primary reasons. For one, the film features the penultimate performance of legendary leading lady Carole Lombard, the gifted comic actress most associated with the screwball genre. Further, the project provided cinema's Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, with his one and only career opportunity to direct a light romantic comedy.
When interviewed in his latter years by Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock was by and large dismissive of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, declaring that he only came to the assignment at Lombard's behest. In crafting the film, Hitch stated, "I more or less followed Norman Krasna's screenplay. Since I didn't really understand the type of people who were portrayed in the film, all I did was photograph the scenes as written." Donald Spoto's biography The Dark Side of Genius, however, offered up a contrary portrait of the director's outlook during production, where Hitchcock declared, "I want to direct a typical American comedy about Typical Americans."
Lombard and Hitchcock were introduced socially by David O. Selznick after he brought the filmmaker to Hollywood in 1940; she had long been a fan of Hitchcock's British works, and noted his propensity for leavening the suspense with moments of humor. After agreeing to collaborate, both wanted Cary Grant for the male lead; with Grant booked solid, they were successful in landing an alternate male lead with a light comedic touch, Robert Montgomery. "Hitchcock thought it remarkable that Lombard and Montgomery could both have been in Hollywood so long without having worked together," Larry Swindell wrote in his biography, Screwball: The Life of Carole Lombard. "He suspected that they might have been one of the all-time great teams, at the Tracy-Hepburn level."
The script, a pleasant confection from ace comedy scribe Krasna (The Devil and Miss Jones, 1941; Bachelor Mother, 1939; Princess O'Rourke, 1943), opens in the Manhattan apartment of prosperous lawyer David Smith (Montgomery) and his wife of three years Ann (Lombard). The three-day impasse in their latest quarrel has just lovingly broken; when she asks over breakfast if he would marry her all over again given the opportunity, he teasingly expresses his doubts. Arriving at his office, David is greeted by a Mr. Deever (Charles Halton), a functionary from Ann's hometown, who's the uncomfortable bearer of some embarrassing news. It seems that the town's redistricting to another state voided certain marriages that took place therein, including the Smiths'.
Although David gets a bemused kick out of the situation's possibilities, he is unaware of Deever's subsequent social call on Ann, who's now been apprised of what has happened. Neither lets on during a disastrous evening out, and once bedtime approaches without a marriage proposal forthcoming, a furious Ann throws David out of the apartment. The balance of the film follows David's efforts to win her back, with a primary obstacle being his law partner Jeff (Gene Raymond), who's looking to make the most of his flirtation with the now-emancipated Ann.
At the time of its release, Mr. and Mrs. Smith enjoyed great popular success, and gave Lombard's career a much needed boost. Reviews were middling, with some critics accusing Hitchcock of slumming. The film is certainly the most atypical in his body of work, but it's an enjoyable entertainment nonetheless. It also proved that Lombard's instincts about Hitchcock had been right all along; his wry, often quirky sense of humor emerges throughout the narrative. Bits of business such as where Jeff attempts to explain the convoluted goings-on to his stuffy parents while huddled in the firm's lavatory reflect the director's stamp.
Tales from the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith revealed an earthy and unpretentious playfulness under Lombard's elegant facade, one of the qualities that endeared her to co-workers and audiences alike. She made a daily ritual of heading to the studio parking lot and festooning the fender of her archly Republican leading man's car with Roosevelt bumper stickers. Hitchcock, already famous for his regard of actors as "cattle," arrived on set one day to find a makeshift corral erected, in which were penned a trio of heifers bearing nameplates for Lombard, Montgomery and Raymond.
Moreover, the sequence containing Hitchcock's obligatory cameo--as a man trying to bum the price of a drink off of Montgomery--was actually directed by Lombard. To the delight of the crew, she gleefully hectored Hitch and demanded multiple retakes until it was shot to her satisfaction. Lombard would only complete one more film, To Be or Not to Be (1942), before meeting her untimely and tragic end at age 33. The queen of screwball was fervently patriotic, and she was in the course of a January 1942 War Bond drive when her plane went down in the California mountains.
Producer: Harry E. Edington
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Screenplay: Norman Krasna
Cinematography: Harry Stradling
Film Editing: William Hamilton
Art Direction: Van Nest Polglase, Albert S. D'Agostino
Music: Edward Ward
Cast: Carole Lombard (Ann Krausheimer Smith), Robert Montgomery (David Smith), Gene Raymond (Jeff Custer), Jack Carson (Chuck Benson), Philip Merivale (Mr. Custer), Lucile Watson (Mrs. Custer).
BW-95m. Closed captioning.
by Jay S. Steinberg
A curio from the waning days of Hollywood's screwball comedy cycle, the RKO production Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941) is pleasant enough on its own merits, but piques the interest of contemporary film fans for two primary reasons. For one, the film features the penultimate performance of legendary leading lady Carole Lombard, the gifted comic actress most associated with the screwball genre. Further, the project provided cinema's Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, with his one and only career opportunity to direct a light romantic comedy. When interviewed in his latter years by Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock was by and large dismissive of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, declaring that he only came to the assignment at Lombard's behest. In crafting the film, Hitch stated, "I more or less followed Norman Krasna's screenplay. Since I didn't really understand the type of people who were portrayed in the film, all I did was photograph the scenes as written." Donald Spoto's biography The Dark Side of Genius, however, offered up a contrary portrait of the director's outlook during production, where Hitchcock declared, "I want to direct a typical American comedy about Typical Americans." Lombard and Hitchcock were introduced socially by David O. Selznick after he brought the filmmaker to Hollywood in 1940; she had long been a fan of Hitchcock's British works, and noted his propensity for leavening the suspense with moments of humor. After agreeing to collaborate, both wanted Cary Grant for the male lead; with Grant booked solid, they were successful in landing an alternate male lead with a light comedic touch, Robert Montgomery. "Hitchcock thought it remarkable that Lombard and Montgomery could both have been in Hollywood so long without having worked together," Larry Swindell wrote in his biography, Screwball: The Life of Carole Lombard. "He suspected that they might have been one of the all-time great teams, at the Tracy-Hepburn level." The script, a pleasant confection from ace comedy scribe Krasna (The Devil and Miss Jones, 1941; Bachelor Mother, 1939; Princess O'Rourke, 1943), opens in the Manhattan apartment of prosperous lawyer David Smith (Montgomery) and his wife of three years Ann (Lombard). The three-day impasse in their latest quarrel has just lovingly broken; when she asks over breakfast if he would marry her all over again given the opportunity, he teasingly expresses his doubts. Arriving at his office, David is greeted by a Mr. Deever (Charles Halton), a functionary from Ann's hometown, who's the uncomfortable bearer of some embarrassing news. It seems that the town's redistricting to another state voided certain marriages that took place therein, including the Smiths'. Although David gets a bemused kick out of the situation's possibilities, he is unaware of Deever's subsequent social call on Ann, who's now been apprised of what has happened. Neither lets on during a disastrous evening out, and once bedtime approaches without a marriage proposal forthcoming, a furious Ann throws David out of the apartment. The balance of the film follows David's efforts to win her back, with a primary obstacle being his law partner Jeff (Gene Raymond), who's looking to make the most of his flirtation with the now-emancipated Ann. At the time of its release, Mr. and Mrs. Smith enjoyed great popular success, and gave Lombard's career a much needed boost. Reviews were middling, with some critics accusing Hitchcock of slumming. The film is certainly the most atypical in his body of work, but it's an enjoyable entertainment nonetheless. It also proved that Lombard's instincts about Hitchcock had been right all along; his wry, often quirky sense of humor emerges throughout the narrative. Bits of business such as where Jeff attempts to explain the convoluted goings-on to his stuffy parents while huddled in the firm's lavatory reflect the director's stamp. Tales from the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith revealed an earthy and unpretentious playfulness under Lombard's elegant facade, one of the qualities that endeared her to co-workers and audiences alike. She made a daily ritual of heading to the studio parking lot and festooning the fender of her archly Republican leading man's car with Roosevelt bumper stickers. Hitchcock, already famous for his regard of actors as "cattle," arrived on set one day to find a makeshift corral erected, in which were penned a trio of heifers bearing nameplates for Lombard, Montgomery and Raymond. Moreover, the sequence containing Hitchcock's obligatory cameo--as a man trying to bum the price of a drink off of Montgomery--was actually directed by Lombard. To the delight of the crew, she gleefully hectored Hitch and demanded multiple retakes until it was shot to her satisfaction. Lombard would only complete one more film, To Be or Not to Be (1942), before meeting her untimely and tragic end at age 33. The queen of screwball was fervently patriotic, and she was in the course of a January 1942 War Bond drive when her plane went down in the California mountains. Producer: Harry E. Edington Director: Alfred Hitchcock Screenplay: Norman Krasna Cinematography: Harry Stradling Film Editing: William Hamilton Art Direction: Van Nest Polglase, Albert S. D'Agostino Music: Edward Ward Cast: Carole Lombard (Ann Krausheimer Smith), Robert Montgomery (David Smith), Gene Raymond (Jeff Custer), Jack Carson (Chuck Benson), Philip Merivale (Mr. Custer), Lucile Watson (Mrs. Custer). BW-95m. Closed captioning. by Jay S. Steinberg
Alfred Hitchcock's Mr. and Mrs. Smith on DVD
New on DVD from Warner Video, Mr. and Mrs. Smith sports a fine transfer which accents Harry Stradling's rich black and white cinematography. There is very little speckling here and the mono audio mix is free of any noticable defects. Practically a no-frills offering, the disc does include the original theatrical trailer and a new making of featurette, "Mr. Hitchcock Meets the Smiths." The latter features some telling sound bites from directors Peter Bogdanovich and Richard Franklin (Psycho II) as well as Hitchcock's daughter, Patricia, and TCM host Robert Osborne.
For more information about Mr. and Mrs. Smith, visit Warner Video. To order Mr. and Mrs. Smith, go to TCM Shopping.
by Jay. S. Steinberg
A curio from the waning days of Hollywood's screwball comedy cycle, the RKO production Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941) is pleasant enough on its own merits, but piques the interest of contemporary film fans for two primary reasons. For one, the film features the penultimate performance of legendary leading lady Carole Lombard, the gifted comic actress most associated with the screwball genre. Further, the project provided cinema's Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, with his one and only career opportunity to direct a light romantic comedy. When interviewed in his latter years by Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock was by and large dismissive of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, declaring that he only came to the assignment at Lombard's behest. In crafting the film, Hitch stated, "I more or less followed Norman Krasna's screenplay. Since I didn't really understand the type of people who were portrayed in the film, all I did was photograph the scenes as written." Donald Spoto's biography The Dark Side of Genius, however, offered up a contrary portrait of the director's outlook during production, where Hitchcock declared, "I want to direct a typical American comedy about Typical Americans." Lombard and Hitchcock were introduced socially by David O. Selznick after he brought the filmmaker to Hollywood in 1940; she had long been a fan of Hitchcock's British works, and noted his propensity for leavening the suspense with moments of humor. After agreeing to collaborate, both wanted Cary Grant for the male lead; with Grant booked solid, they were successful in landing an alternate male lead with a light comedic touch, Robert Montgomery. "Hitchcock thought it remarkable that Lombard and Montgomery could both have been in Hollywood so long without having worked together," Larry Swindell wrote in his biography, Screwball: The Life of Carole Lombard. "He suspected that they might have been one of the all-time great teams, at the Tracy-Hepburn level." The script, a pleasant confection from ace comedy scribe Krasna (The Devil and Miss Jones, 1941; Bachelor Mother, 1939; Princess O'Rourke, 1943), opens in the Manhattan apartment of prosperous lawyer David Smith (Montgomery) and his wife of three years Ann (Lombard). The three-day impasse in their latest quarrel has just lovingly broken; when she asks over breakfast if he would marry her all over again given the opportunity, he teasingly expresses his doubts. Arriving at his office, David is greeted by a Mr. Deever (Charles Halton), a functionary from Ann's hometown, who's the uncomfortable bearer of some embarrassing news. It seems that the town's redistricting to another state voided certain marriages that took place therein, including the Smiths'. Although David gets a bemused kick out of the situation's possibilities, he is unaware of Deever's subsequent social call on Ann, who's now been apprised of what has happened. Neither lets on during a disastrous evening out, and once bedtime approaches without a marriage proposal forthcoming, a furious Ann throws David out of the apartment. The balance of the film follows David's efforts to win her back, with a primary obstacle being his law partner Jeff (Gene Raymond), who's looking to make the most of his flirtation with the now-emancipated Ann. At the time of its release, Mr. and Mrs. Smith enjoyed great popular success, and gave Lombard's career a much needed boost. Reviews were middling, with some critics accusing Hitchcock of slumming. The film is certainly the most atypical in his body of work, but it's an enjoyable entertainment nonetheless. It also proved that Lombard's instincts about Hitchcock had been right all along; his wry, often quirky sense of humor emerges throughout the narrative. Bits of business such as where Jeff attempts to explain the convoluted goings-on to his stuffy parents while huddled in the firm's lavatory reflect the director's stamp. Tales from the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith revealed an earthy and unpretentious playfulness under Lombard's elegant facade, one of the qualities that endeared her to co-workers and audiences alike. She made a daily ritual of heading to the studio parking lot and festooning the fender of her archly Republican leading man's car with Roosevelt bumper stickers. Hitchcock, already famous for his regard of actors as "cattle," arrived on set one day to find a makeshift corral erected, in which were penned a trio of heifers bearing nameplates for Lombard, Montgomery and Raymond. Moreover, the sequence containing Hitchcock's obligatory cameo--as a man trying to bum the price of a drink off of Montgomery--was actually directed by Lombard. To the delight of the crew, she gleefully hectored Hitch and demanded multiple retakes until it was shot to her satisfaction. Lombard would only complete one more film, To Be or Not to Be (1942), before meeting her untimely and tragic end at age 33. The queen of screwball was fervently patriotic, and she was in the course of a January 1942 War Bond drive when her plane went down in the California mountains. New on DVD from Warner Video, Mr. and Mrs. Smith sports a fine transfer which accents Harry Stradling's rich black and white cinematography. There is very little speckling here and the mono audio mix is free of any noticable defects. Practically a no-frills offering, the disc does include the original theatrical trailer and a new making of featurette, "Mr. Hitchcock Meets the Smiths." The latter features some telling sound bites from directors Peter Bogdanovich and Richard Franklin (Psycho II) as well as Hitchcock's daughter, Patricia, and TCM host Robert Osborne. For more information about Mr. and Mrs. Smith, visit Warner Video. To order Mr. and Mrs. Smith, go to TCM Shopping. by Jay. S. Steinberg
I'd give five bucks to see that cat take a sip of that soup.
- David Smith
I will never forget you in that little blue dress.
I can't imagine anything hanging in the closet shrinking so much.
- Anne
If you had it all to do over again, would you still have married me?
Honestly, no.
about halfway through the movie passing David Smith in front of his building.
Hitchcock's only screwball comedy. He was talked into directing it by 'Lombard, Carole' .
a conversation is made difficult by a noisy flushing toilet.
The working title of this film was Mr. and Mrs. Materials contained in the RKO Archives Script Files at the UCLA Arts Library-Special Collections reveal that writer Norman Krasna wrote scripts for this film under the titles Who Was That Lady I Seen You With? and No for an Answer. According to a pre-production news item in Hollywood Reporter, Joan Harrison was hired to work on the screenplay, but her contribution to the final project has not been confirmed. A Hollywood Reporter production chart places Kate MacKenna in the cast, but her appearance has not been confirmed. Other pre-production news items in Hollywood Reporter note that RKO wanted Cary Grant to play the role of "David Smith," but the studio was already contractually obligated to Robert Montgomery, who was on loan from M-G-M. Alfred Hitchcock was on loan from David O. Selznick's company.
In a modern interview, Hitchcock said that he agreed to direct the film as a favor to Carole Lombard. Hitchcock, who was known for his suspense films, claimed that because he did not understand the type of people portrayed in the film, he just photographed the script, never veering from Krasna's screenplay. The Hollywood Reporter review commented that Hitchcock should stay away from comedies. According to an article in Life, Lombard directed the scene in which Hitchcock strolls by and tips his hat to Montgomery. A modern source adds that Lombard, in response to Hitchcock's now-famous remark that all actors are "cattle," ordered a corral built on the set in which she placed three cows, each bearing a tag with one of the stars's names. This was Lombard's last picture for RKO. According to some modern critics, some of Hitchcock's later cinematic techniques were foreshadowed in this film.
Released in United States 1941