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Mr & Mrs Smith [DVD] [1941]
 
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Mr & Mrs Smith [DVD] [1941]

DVD ~ Carole Lombard
3.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
RRP: £19.99
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Product details

  • Actors: Carole Lombard, Robert Montgomery, Gene Raymond, Jack Carson, Philip Merivale
  • Directors: Alfred Hitchcock
  • Writers: Norman Krasna
  • Producers: Harry E. Edington
  • Format: Black & White, PAL
  • Language English
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: U
  • Studio: Universal Pictures UK
  • DVD Release Date: 21 April 2003
  • Run Time: 90 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B00008Z78C
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 16,422 in DVD (See Bestsellers in DVD)

    Popular in this category:

    #40 in  DVD > Crime, Thrillers & Mystery > Alfred Hitchcock

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Reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
Before Hollywood had entirely typecast Alfred Hitchcock as the master of suspense, with Mr & Mrs Smith he was allowed to fashion an elegant romantic trifle starring Robert Montgomery and Carole Lombard. It probably won't replace Rear Window or Psycho in your affections, but the film is more than a curious footnote to the director's career. The two leads play David and Ann Smith, a devoted but endlessly squabbling couple who discover their three-year marriage isn't legal. When he unexpectedly hesitates to arrange a second wedding, she storms out in a huff and soon begins dating his solid, dependable business partner Jeff (Gene Raymond). The rest follows the formula laid down by such previous screwball comedies as The Awful Truth (1937) and Bringing Up Baby (1938): David employs fair means or foul to win back Ann's heart, causes all sorts of complicated mischief, then... well, three guesses what happens in the end.

The intriguing thing about the movie is how Hitchcock takes Norman Krasna's paper-thin script and adds sly undercurrents of menace. You may note, for instance, that the ostensibly happy Smiths treat each other with subtle sadism right from the start, and that David's tactical pursuit of his ex-wife (spying on her and deliberately offending Jeff's parents) involves them both in humiliations that are really quite sinister and ugly. Violence seems about to erupt in the recurring scenes where Ann shaves her husband (suggestively holding a razor up to his throat)--and make what you will of our hero's symbolic nosebleeds. There's a touch of Vertigo in one scary moment when a jammed amusement park ride leaves two characters dangling helplessly high above the ground--and a touch of shall we say relief for Hitchcock's well-known love of toilet humour in another oddball sequence. Montgomery and Lombard keep the mood acceptably frivolous, while indicating the flawed nature of the marital relationship. From the evidence of this one-off, Hitchcock might have been among the best comedy directors in the business, had he so wished. --Peter Matthews

Special Features
English
Region 2


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Customer Reviews

13 Reviews
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 (2)
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 (2)
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Average Customer Review
3.1 out of 5 stars (13 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Sowing the seeds of greatness., 26 Feb 2005
There is something quite disconcerting about watching a Hitchcock film, the man who has the reputation, rightly, as the best maker of suspense films ever; a man whose work has irrevocably changed how the world sees filmmaking as a whole through the suspense medium, and knowing also that one is watching a comedy.

Watching 'The Trouble With Harry' one gets a similar feeling and that film too, accompanying the comedy, however dated some of it can be at times, has a real sense of the macabre, a quite horrible darkness to the overall feeling of the film. The way in which the couple, (having spilt up, Mr. wants to get back together with his uninterested wife), and particularly him, treat each other, the constant dogging, spying and overalll attempt at malicious sabotage is quite disconcerting if also fairly funny.

There's no getting away from the fact that the film isn't a great. Though there are echoes in some of the symbolism, though some images bring others from greater films to mind, Vertigo, Psycho, still, like HItchcock's films as a whole from that era, we aren't treated to a wonderful cinemtaic experience but a good one, and, far more interestingly, we are shown, like most of Hitchcock's earlier and less successful film, the seeds of the future, those reminders, fleeting though they may be, of what comes out of this work and one can hardly fail to wonder at it.

Working with, shall we say, not the best screenplay ever made, the actors performances are all strong, as macabre as they needed to be, when they needed to be and likewise for the comedy. That is perhaps what gets the film through, the very decent balance between the seriousnees of the film and the comedy.

It is well worth the watching and, as with virtually all of his work, essential for any true Hitchcockians.

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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars A Hitchcock Curio: his only screwball comedy!, 19 Nov 2000
This review is from: Mr And Mrs Smith [VHS] [1941] (VHS Tape)
First off you might note that this movie was made early in Hitchcock's American career as a favour to Carole Lombard. Poignant too, as Lombard was killed in a plane crash between this film's completion and its release.

It's odd Hitchcock fare, but fluff enough to keep you engaged. Mr and Mrs Smith are constantly at each other's throats, but with one condition -- they never leave the bedroom until their score has been settled.

But what do they do when they find that their marriage was not legal in the first place? Batten down the hatches, kids, this one's not pretty.

The virtues of this film are to be seen in Hitchcock's dealing with the married couple. There aren't that many married-couple stories in film, because all that lusting has been tamed. But Hitch has his own way of telling these tales. This film is in good company with earlier English attempts Rich & Strange, The Lady Vanishes and The Man Who Knew Too Much pitching themselves on the far side of the marriage boundary.

That said, this is a particularly lusty marriage, and of course when it is annulled, the lust goes mad. Only in different directions.

Worth checking out for the farce -- but don't approach it with your Hitchcock-snobbery head on.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars The original, 1 May 2006
Lots of people don't seem to like this film. Perhaps they were expecting something different from Hitchcock. However, I find it a brilliant comedy, and Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery are superb in this. This film isn't perfect, and it especially lags in the last half. Agreed that it is a departure from Hitchcock's normal style of film, but that makes it all the more better. Hitch made this film so he could work with Carole Lombard his favourite actress, and I think that it wasn't a half bad attempt. People, stop trying to view this as a Hitchcock masterpiece, just watch it as a hilarious screwball comedy!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Comedy lacks fizz
Mr & Mrs Smith is certainly an oddity in the Alfred Hitchcock canon. This "screwball comedy" has its moments, but generally lacks fizz, with a script that is only sporadically... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Kenneth F. Mcara

2.0 out of 5 stars Poor DVD presentation of this film
Unfortunately this UK DVD edition contains a mediocre print and no extras. Avoid this at all costs and instead get the US R1 Warner Bros edition which has a better print transfer,... Read more
Published 2 months ago by stickinsect

3.0 out of 5 stars Strange Relationship
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. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Brian Connor

5.0 out of 5 stars Who is Mamma Lucia?
See the film to find out. This is Hitchcock in perverse, cynical mode, just the right bloke to direct a screwball comedy. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Chris Pin

3.0 out of 5 stars Don't be expecting Hitchcock!!
I really enjoyed this film. I am just a new fan of Carole Lombard and this was the first film i've seen her in and i'll definitely be buying more. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Ms. Kristel Knights

3.0 out of 5 stars The queen of screwball comedy meets Hitchcock
Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Robert Montgomery and Carole Lombard) have a marriage with many ups and downs. One day at the office Mr. Read more
Published on 26 Feb 2007 by bernie

2.0 out of 5 stars Be careful what you say to your wife at breakfast.
"Mr and Mrs Smith" is a tiresome 1940's cockamamie,screwball,etc. Hitchcock rom-com which doesn't quite work. Read more
Published on 22 May 2006 by L. Davidson

1.0 out of 5 stars Unique romantic comedy … no humour … no laughs
This film is a master class in how not to make a romantic comedy.

The screenplay is mediocre, the characters cardboard cut outs, never a single laugh. Read more

Published on 27 Jan 2006 by pointone

3.0 out of 5 stars The film isn't really hitchcock
The movie was okay but not really what you would expect from hitchcock. The film is just too delightful. Read more
Published on 11 Dec 2003 by pwoods49

5.0 out of 5 stars Probably one of the nastiest screwball comedies ever made.
A gloriously acidic screwball comedy, with three astonishingly good lead performances. Probably my favourite Hitchcock, easily his most underrated.
Published on 4 Jan 2001

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