Mr. & Mrs. Smith

Rating:
Summary: Red Hot and Hilarious
Review: Alfred Hitchcock broke out of his macabre mold to make an uproarious romantic comedy, and he couldn't have picked a better lady than Carole Lombard. Word for word and blow for blow she meets her irreverent husband head on and the results are hilarious! Newly married Robert Montgomery tries to play it nice and cool, but Lombard is red hot and that's what gives this comedy it's exhilarating edge. Expect the unexpected, but don't doubt for a minute that this guy and this girl are hopelessly attracted to each other. Alfred Hitchcock captures in this comedy, as he does in many of his other films, the unmistakable passion that boils just beneath the surface between the characters. But this time, there are no holds barred, so watch out! In a refreshing change of scenery, Hitchcock adds another laurel to his crown with this very memorable comedy.

Rating:
Summary: Not a Typical Hitchcock, but His Trademarks are Still There!
Review: Hitchcock was "The Master of Suspense." His films were famous for combining action, big stars, Bernard Herrmann music, suspense, and even traces of wry and subtle humor. However, in his long career, Alfred Hitchcock only made two films that can be classified as total comedy. One was 1955s The Trouble With Harry, which was a black comedy, but still definitely a COMEDY. His only other comedy, he made 15 years prior to this, in 1940. He made the film as a favor to a friend of his. That friend was Carole Lombard, the undoubted Queen of Screwball Comedy. She had read the script and fallen in love with it, yet she couldn't find a director, so Alfred Hitchcock agreed to do it for her. The film was Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and it starred such comic legends as Carole Lombard, Robert Montgomery, Gene Raymond, and a young Jack Carson.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith is the story of a bickering, but non-the-less happily married couple. In the films hilarious opening scene, the Smiths are locked in their bedroom. It seems that they have a set of rules they follow each time they get into a quarrel. They lock themselves in their room and do not come out until the fight is solved. One time, they stayed in the room for 8 days. When they finally solve the dispute, they sit down for breakfast, where they are as happy and as "in love" as ever, but rule number 7 permits Mrs. Smith to ask Mr. Smith a question, and she asks him, "If you had to do it over again, would you have married me?" He tells her how much he loves her and how happy he is, but he concludes by saying that married life is too much for him, and that if he had the chance, he wouldn't have married her. At first a little disappointed, Mr. Smith soon comes to see that her husband really does love her, and he goes to work happy, and she blissfully starts the chores.

Unfortunately, a man comes to Mr. Smith's office and informs him that because of the fact of "the town is across the river and is in one county and has been considered in another county, but the other county isn't in the state" that Mr. David Smith and Mrs. Ann Smith aren't legally married. The laughter and humor keep rising after he is kicked out of the apartment and has to live in a local men¡Çs' club. Each gets a temporary partner and after a hilarious restaurant scene, a crowd of three is off for a weekend in the county in the uplifting conclusion of Hitchcock¡Çs classic Screwball Comedy.

Marvelously scripted with beautiful and flawless performances by all the cast, Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a breathtaking and fast paced classic. Although not typical Hitchcock, his traces are still evident. There are small incidents of suspense, a small chase scene in a department store, a stalled Parachute Jump in the rain at the World¡Çs Fair, and some great chemistry and rapport between the stars on the screen. If Carole had not died tragically a few years later, in 1942, I would not have been surprised if Lombard and Montgomery had made more films together. Looking at them here, how can one have doubt as to how successful they would have been?

Rating:
Summary: When is the DVD going to come out!
Review: I wish that this movie would come out on DVD soon. It is a wonderful comedy filled with humor and action. It is truly a wonderful movie to see if you are looking for a really good classic, but like other Hitchcock films, this movie is a comedy, not a thriller. So, if you are looking for a mystery by Hitchcock, don't pick this one. Hitchcock has a great sense of humor when he created this spectacular classic. If there is a DVD, (which I hope) I hope there are great special features. If you are looking for a great film to make you laugh, Go see this one!

Rating:
Summary: A great screwball comedy from the master of suspense?
Review: I'd have given this movie four and a half stars if I could have. It's terribly funny, and one of the best movies of its genre. Carol Lombard and Robert Montgomery are a married couple who find out that due to a technicality in the law, they are not really married. She thinks he doesn't want to marry her again, he can't convince her he really loves her. While the movie lacks the utmost in side-splitting dialogue, the situations that Hitchcock presents us with are immensely funny, and the kinds of scenes you remember and laugh about for days afterwards. There's not much suspense, except perhaps the ferris wheel scene. Lombard and Montgomery are terrific.

Rating:
Summary: Trifle from The Master
Review: It would seem that the great Alfred Hitchcock felt obligated to make a screwball comedy, since it was all the rage in the thirties and forties. Despite the best efforts of a talented cast, however, this is a pretty charmless affair.

Oddly enough, Hitchcock's Suspicion, which was released the same year, also concerns a marriage lacking in trust, but it's considerably more successful. Maybe that's because it's easier to sympathize with and care about Joan Fontaine's character in that movie (and in his classic, Rebecca).

In Suspicion, Fontaine tries desperately to trust Cary Grant--who may or may not have married her for her money--whereas both of the the characters in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, played by Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery, lack trust in the other. That made them both unsympathetic to me, whereas the guileless Gene Raymond seemed all the more appealing in comparison, but he's presented as more of a rube (a bit like Ralph Bellamy, who always lost the girl to Grant) than as a serious contender for a sophisticated lady's affections.

If you're a Hitchcock fanatic, as I am, Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a must simply because it reveals a different side of the man, but if what you're really looking for is a first-rate screwball comedy, look no further than Howard Hawks' Twentieth Century, also with Lombard, or His Girl Friday, with Grant and Rosalind Russell.