"Hi honey, I picked up a DVD. Mr. and Mrs. Smith."
My wife turned to face me and the room went dark. I glanced at the window, expecting storm clouds. But the temperature change was radiating from Mrs. Panguitch.
"We’re not watching that."
I didn’t know what to say. Had she seen it before and didn’t like it? That would hardly explain the steel in her voice.
Understanding hit me even as she went on to say, "We’re not watching Angelina Jolie prance around in her underwear."
Not thatMr. and Mrs. Smith
I myself find Angelina Jolie amusing strictly for the absurdity of her dirigible lips, so I hope I’ll be forgiven for laughing at my wife’s concern. The fact of the matter is I had entirely forgotten any such movie existed until my wife reminded me. What I had in my hands was a 1941 comedy, and it wasn’t Angelina Jolie in her underwear, but Carole Lombard, if that makes a difference. More importantly, this comedy was directed by Alfred Hitchcock, which proved to be the “I gotta see this” factor for me.
After all, who doesn’t love Hitchcock? The man’s an icon, and rightly so. The unflagging popularity of his suspenseful thrillers is a legacy few would contest. If nothing else, his one foray into screwball comedy is noteworthy as a novelty item. Unfortunately, it’s noteworthy for little else, unless you count the possibility that it contains the earliest Hollywood reference to pizza.
The Premise
Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Robert Montgomery and Carole Lombard) have been happily married for three years. Like any married couple, they have their spats. To help them through the vagaries of married life, Ann Smith has formulated a set of rules which she insists her husband David abide by. These include being unable to leave the bedroom until a quarrel is resolved, which means David must sometimes neglect his law practice for days at a time. Thankfully, his partner, Jeff Custer (Gene Raymond), is as good and loyal a friend as a man could hope for.
Considering Ann’s controlling neurosis, we’re not surprised that David wants to say no when she asks him whether, if he had it all to do over again, he still would have married her. But we are surprised when he actually does say no. Honesty is a mistake, of course. And as fate would have it, the chance to decide whether to do it all over again will be offered that same day when the two discover that, due to a technicality, they were never really married in the first place.
Now that their hypothetical discussion has become a reality, what will it take to convince Ann that David would marry her all over again? More importantly, given this chance, will Ann want to do it all over again?
The Execution
The acting is all-around marvelous. Carole Lombard deserves the praise that still follows her, sixty-three years after her death. Lucille Ball inherited the screwball throne, but lacking Lombard’s beauty or style she had to make do with crassness. Lombard only made one more film after this, To Be or Not to Be, so Mr. and Mrs. Smith may as well have been her swan song. It was the chance to work with her that lured Hitchcock out of his preferred genre, and it is her presence that makes the film as good as it is.
Robert Montgomery does well also. He’s a ham here, but it’s entirely appropriate. He also benefits from playing a sympathetic character, someone we like because of his patience with Ann’s strange exactness, and who we admire for pursuing her long past the time any man not in love would have given her up to her unreasoning stubbornness.
Hitchcock’s touch is noticeable if you look for it. There’s an edge to the shooting and a dryness to the humor. Where he and screenwriter Norman Krasna failed is in the movie’s length. We’re only talking about ninety-five minutes, but the premise deserved sixty or seventy. Fantastic scenes like the return to the restaurant where they first dated, the Florida Club scene, the fairgrounds scene, and the Lake Placid scenes are separated by too much space and too little difference.
Ultimately, the result is watchable, even enjoyable. Certainly better than the punishment I would have suffered had I brought home the more recent Mr. and Mrs. Smith. But if I had it to do over again, maybe I would have had a better time mocking the zeppelins Angelina Jolie has for lips, even at the risk of Mrs. Panguitch ogling Brad Pitt.
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