Mr. & Mrs. Smith

The picture and sound quality for these classics is excellent. I subtracted 1 star because the release copy of Strangers on a Train wouldn’t play. The preview copy was included and was fine. We looked up the differences between the release and preview copies and they are minimal so we won’t be returning the set.

This is a departure from the suspicion/mystery into comedy genre, and is the only pure comedy Alfred Hitchcock ever made in the U.S. A.It stars the Queen of the "Screwball" genre, (it was named after her), Carole Lombard, Robert Montgomery, Gene Raymond, and Jack Carson.It's a story about a happily married couple who love each other but quarrel once in awhile. After three years of marriage, David Smith, gets a visit from a County Official at work who informs him that his marriage is invalidated by a mistake in the county boundary line.David decides to keep this information from his wife, at least, for the night. This sounds like fun to him. Just then he glances down at his desk where he has written Mrs. Smith and changes "Mrs. to Mistress and smiles. He calls his wife and asks her out to dinner.Meanwhile, the County Official, coming from the same home town as Ann Smith, decides to stop by the Smith's apartment to say hello. While he is there, he tells Ann, and her mother who is visiting, that she is not legally married to David. At first, Ann is not worried. She is sure David will marry her after dinner. Unfortunately, David thinks he has a few days to pretend he has a mistress. David is in a lot of trouble. He just doesn't know it yet.I really enjoyed this movie. It is full of those Hitchcock touches. You can even spot Hitch walking in front of David's work building smoking a cigar (directed by Carole Lombard, who made him do it many times). Hitchcock had a dry sense of humor so don't expect the Marx Bros., but there are some priceless scenes here. When Gene Raymond is discussing why he doesn't drink, and what I call, "The Night Club" scene with Jack Carson, is classic. This film is one of/or the earliest to show a pizzeria in film.In 1941, this movie was a big hit bringing in $750,000 despite, The New York Times, panning it in it's review. Script by Academy Award winner Norman Krasna, Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Wonderful Special Features. DVD had no defects with sound or picture, and front and back covers are in English.In an 1939 interview in England, Alfred Hitchcock remarked that he wanted to make a serious film with Carole Lombard. Stories differ as to who's idea it was to make Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Some say Hitch including Hitch, then later he denied it.This was the last film released prior to Lombard's death. The film To Be or Not To Be, was her final film, released two months after her death in the airplane crash selling war bonds.

Hitchcock put plenty of humor in his films, but this comedy doesn't seem like his style. It feels as though it were written and directed by Carol Lombard (which is fine, because she was that good) Gets a little tedious towards the end, but if you like Lombard, see it.

the Brad Pitt Angelina Jolie movie(which was great), this is one of Hitch's lesser efforts for me. Maybe it was the actors(Carol Lombard and Robert Montgomery) but I just found this tedious to get through. But again, it is Hitchcock, and as such a must watch. RP

Alfred Hitchcock directed Mr. and Mrs. Smith as a favor to Carole Lombard (he was renting her home after she married Clark Gable) in this sophisticated comedy. Ann (Lombard) and David Smith (Robert Montgomery) star as a wealthy Manhattan couple who engage in some prolonged marital squabbles because they have agreed to keep themselves locked up in their bedroom until the matters are resolved. Some battles have kept them holed up for over a week at a time. After making up from one of these fights, Ann asks David if given the chance to go back in time would he marry her again. He answers that he wouldn't even though he loves her very much. David thinks that married life is too complicated. Before you know it, a man enters David's law office to inform him that due to a technicality, he and Ann are not married. David wants to keep this news a secret from Ann for a while, but she finds out anyway. Ann thinks that David is planning to propose all over again, waiting for the perfect romantic moment, but he doesn't. This causes Ann to kick David out of their beautiful New York City apartment declaring that she's not sure she loves him anymore. When Ann starts dating, David begins in earnest to win her back. But not after he spends some hilarious days at his club where he meets an old business associate, played by Jack Carson, who encourages David to go out on a double date with him. Montgomery's scenes at the supper club are pure comic genius. In these scenes alone, he proves his status as one of the greatest comic performers in film. All hell breaks lose when Ann starts dating David's partner, played by Gene Raymond. When David finds out that his partner and old college buddy is squiring his wife, he redoubles his efforts at getting Ann back. This is probably one of the oddest films in the Hitchcock canon because it is completely lacking in what we have come to expect from his movies. There is no violence, no real suspense, no mystery, no crazy mothers ruining their sons' lives, and so on. But taken on its own merits, it is a completely enjoyable film, which reminds us what wonderful comic talents Lombard and Montgomery were and how the likes of which we are unlikely to see again. With witty dialogue, great pacing and acting, including terrific character bits by Carson and Lucile Watson as Lombard's mother. Produced in 1940 and released in 1941, this film has some footage of New York during the time of the 1939 World's Fair. In fact Lombard and Raymond go to the Fair after a dinner date. This really isn't minor Hitchcock, but it isn't what you've come to expect from the master of suspense. Perhaps he was trying to prove (early on too) that he was also the master of any film project he decided to take on. If you love the screwball comedies of the 1930s and early 1940s, give this one a look.

Alfred Hitchcock movies are some of the best excellent written dramas..From Cary Grant in North by Northwest, Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo, Anthony Perkins in Psycho and one of my personal favorite movies, The Birds with Tippi Hedren.His movies produced and starred some of the best legendary actors of that era.When you want to relax and watch a "good movie", that is gripping, suspenseful and holds your attention to the very end?Alfred Hitchcock's legendary classic movies have a plethora to choose from, bar-none..

A rarity from Alfred Hitchcock - a screwball comedy dating from 1941 starring Carole Lombard (only months before her tragically early death) and Robert Montgomery as the eponymous Mr and Mrs Smith. New York based Ann and David have been married for three years and are prone to fallings out that can last for days, and at the start of the film we see one of these in progress then being resolved. Ann is feisty, and that's where some of the comedy comes from as David tries to work around the latest spat.After the issue is resolved Lawyer David can finally get back to work with legal partner Jeff. However an official calls to see David and explains that owing to a technicality David and Ann's marriage isn't legal, having taken place in Ann's home town in Idaho. He is a personal friend of Ann's, asking David to remember him to her. Giving David his $2 marriage fee back he states they ought to get married in a civil ceremony as soon as possible, which David finds amusing.Taking his leave the man catches a taxi, but by chance passing David and Ann's street he diverts the taxi to catch up with Ann and impart the same news to her and her visiting mother. Ann arranges to meet David after work, squeezes herself into the same dress he popped the question in and suggests attending the same restaurant they got engaged in that evening. Expecting David to mention the issue all through the evening he does not, and when they finally reach home she faces him with the news and another row ensues.Doesn't sound much like a comedy? At times it does struggle, but the comedy comes from the misfiring relationship between David and Ann, her enlisting David's partner Jeff as council for their separation, Ann deliberately beginning a relationship with teetotaller Jeff to spite David, with some lovely moments in a nightclub and stuck on a fairground ride; Ann convincing Jeff to down spirits and treat it like medicine (which became a recurring Hitchcock theme in several subsequent films); and lovely cameos from actors playing Ann's mother and Jeff's horrified parents.It's a simple tale of David trying to win Ann back after getting banished to his club to sleep and the stubborn-headedness of Ann to make David pay for his sins. Lombard plays her role well, indeed for this period it's a treat to see a strong female portrayed. Cummings igs less satisfactory and indeed was only employed a week before filming commenced after Hitchcock failed to attract Cary Grant to the role. His Girl Friday this isn't, not all the jokes work, though it's a worthy attempt. A minor Hitchcock, but a curiosity worth seeking out.

Mr and Mrs Smith argue a lot but spend a lot of time making up. Mr Smith gers a visitor at work who informs him that due to a technicality he might not actually be married. Alfred Hitchcock did the odd comedy as well as his more famous thrillers. This isn't up among his best films nor is it up among the all time great 40's screwball comedies but it is fun and amusing with good performances from Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery. Worth a look for Hitchcock fans.

A lilm drawn in 1941; the story of husband and wife in love and hardies (for nothing), whose marriage in the west is made void by a strange clause just arrived by a little man from that place; the ex wife then refuses to live with her ex husband and flirts with a suitable friend. With a final, positive good sense and love ending in the mountains. I knew about this movie when, still very young boy, I saw it down there in 1944 just liberated by our anglo-americans, and desired to see it again. Essentially, a pleasant simple story of the love between two people who very often bicker together for days about nothing and never leave their bedroom till they reconcile. I never saw the more recent version.

I am a longtime fan of Mr Hitchcock and own most of his works on DVD but had shied away from this one as I generally detest the romantic/screwball comedy genres. I finally relented and purchased Mr & Mrs Smith. Picture and sound quality are comparable to other Hitch's of this vintage (fine/alright) but what a strange concoction the film is. I didn't hate it. Mr & Mrs Smith have a very strange relationship indeed. For its period the movie has an unusual darkness of mood and coldness of character in places - I guess these elements are the Hitchcock touch at work. Certainly not the froth and bubble lightweight fare I had imagined it would be. Not a film you'll want to watch often but if you're anything like me and something of a completest you may watch this every few years when you chronologically watch your way through the entire Hitch catalogue.

Unusually for Hitchcock this is a romantic comedy that works very well starring Robert Montgomery & Carole Lombard. Plenty of clever touches from Hitchcock.