MR. & MRS. SMITH (RKO 1941) Warner Home Video

Alfred Hitchcock once mused, if he had decided to make Cinderella, his audience would be looking for a body in the coach. Point well taken. Not everything Hitchcock made was spun into box office gold, and, the few times he did endeavor to veer away from his tried and true 'wrong man' formula, proved just how much the public had come to expect a certain kind of stylish thriller from the master of suspense. The demand for Alfred Hitchcock’s services, following the back to back smash hits of Rebecca and Foreign Correspondent (both in 1940) was overwhelming. While producer, David O. Selznick toyed with the idea of developing future in-house projects for his star director, Selznick’s own ambitions on several other mega-projects throughout the decade resulted in Hitchcock being loaned out like a prize bull for some quick cash, the part of his contract he abhorred most of all. Hitch’s first release was to RKO where he dabbled in screwball comedy. The result was Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941). Scripted by Norman Krasna, the film tells the rather conventional tale of married couple, Ann (Carole Lombard) and David (Robert Montgomery) who are struggling to find reasons to stay married. The problem, it seems, stems from the couple’s ‘one question a month’ rule. Ann asks David if given the opportunity to go back in time and, knowing then what he knows now, would he still have married her. In a moment of pure honesty, David confesses that although he loves his wife, he also misses his bachelor's freedom, leading Ann to erroneously deduce he no longer loves her at all.

David’s response is made even more problematic when the couple learns that their marriage is not legal because of a state boundary dispute. Recognizing he has been free all along and assuming the question is therefore moot, David decides to propose marriage to his wife again. Only, now Ann contemplates the practicality of spending the rest of her life with a man who, however briefly, doubted he had made the right decision aligning his own with hers. Mr. and Mrs. Smith is admirably nutty – masterfully pulled off by Lombard's penchant for plying her craft to this frazzled madcap, and, by Montgomery's willingness to play a sort of Bud Abbott to her Lou Costello. Alas, given Hitchcock’s prowess in the field of suspense, it remains a little off-putting, even to enjoy the semantics of ‘he said/she told’ play out without at least one or two prerequisite moments of heightened suspense. As Mr. and Mrs. Smith is, in fact, a screwball comedy, no such moments are forthcoming. And, truth to tell, Krasna’s script is a fairly pedestrian affair – serviceable, though hardly unique, or worthy of Hitchcock’s time and efforts. One sincerely wonders what could have possibly been going through the executive brain trust at RKO to hire the master of suspense to direct a romantic comedy. And, seemingly aware the material is not of his ilk, Hitch’ shoots the picture with an uncharacteristic non-Hitchcockian flair. His direction is solid and more than salvageable, if strangely lacking a real mastery and verve for the genre that directors like Leo McCarey and Preston Sturges share. In this respect, Mr. and Mrs. Smith founders - badly on occasion - from a complete lack of comedic subterfuge. It's an equitable comedy, but not an outrageously ingenious one.

Warner Home Video’s DVD yields below-par picture quality. The B&W image is grainy, poorly contrasted and contains a litany of age-related artifacts. Contrast levels are weak at best. Blacks are a deep gray; whites, a pale gray. Fine details tend to get lost under the patina of film grain. The audio is mono as originally recorded and adequately represented. Extras include a very brief featurette on the film and its theatrical trailer. Bottom line: Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a disposable movie in Hitchcock’s canon. For completionists only. All others could choose to forget it and focus on the incredible works the master of suspense gave us elsewhere.  

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

2

VIDEO/AUDIO

2.5

EXTRAS

1