MR. AND MRS. SMITH (1941) B/W 95m dir: Alfred Hitchcock

w/Carole Lombard, Robert Montgomery, Gene Raymond, Jack Carson, Philip Merivale, Lucile Watson, William Tracy, Charles Halton, Esther Dale, Emma Dunn, Betty Compson, Patricia Farr, Williams Edmunds, Adela Pearce, Murray Alper, D. Johnson, James Flavin, Sam Harris

Francois Truffaut interviewed the director about MR. AND MRS. SMITH in his book, Hitchcock:

"F.T. Right after Foreign Correspondent, in 1941, you went on to make a picture that's rather out of line with the rest of your works, since it's your only American comedy. Mr. and Mrs. Smith is the classic story about a divorced couple who seem to run into each other after their separation, engage in a certain amount of competition and wind up getting together again.

"A.H. That picture was done as a friendly gesture to Carole Lombard. At the time, she was married to Clark Gable, and she asked whether I'd do a picture with her. In a weak moment I accepted, and I more or less followed Norman Krasna's screenplay. Since I really didn't understand the type of people who were portrayed in the film, all I did was to photograph the scenes as written.

"There's an amusing little sidelight on that picture. A few years prior to my arrival in Hollywood, I had been quoted as saying that all actors are cattle. I'm not quite sure in what context I might have made such a statement. It may have been made in the early days of the talkies in England, when we used actors who were simultaneously performing in stage plays. When they had a matinee, they'd leave the set, I felt, much too early for a matinee, and I suspected they were allowing themselves plenty of time for a very leisurely lunch. And this meant we had to shoot our scenes at breakneck speed so that the actors could get out on time. I couldn't help feeling that if they'd been really conscientious, they'd have swallowed their sandwich in the cab, on the way to the theater, and get there in time to put on their make-up and go onstage.

"I had no use for that kind of actor. Another reason for resentment is that I'd sometimes overhear two actresses talking in a restaurant. One would say to the other, 'What are you doing now, dear?' and the other one would say, 'Oh, I'm filming,' in the same tone of voice as if she were saying, 'Oh, I'm slumming.'

"And this raises a grievance I have against those people who come into our industry by way of the theater or as writers and who work in our medium for the money only. I think the worst culprits are the writers, particularly those who are here in Hollywood. Authors come in from New York, get a contract with M-G-M with no specific assignment, and then they say, 'What do you want me to write?' Some playwrights sign three-month contracts just in order to spend their winters in California. By the way, how did we get on to this subject?

"F.T. We were talking about your statement that 'actors are cattle.'

"A.H. Oh, yes. Well, what I was leading up to is that when I arrived on the set, the first day of shooting, Carole Lombard had had a corral built, with three sections, and in each one there was a live young cow. Round the neck of each of them there was a white disc tied on with a ribbon with three names: Carole Lombard, Robert Montgomery, and the name of a third member of the cast, Gene Raymond.

"I should add that my comment was a generalization, and Carole Lombard's spectacular repartee was her way of kidding me. She probably agreed with me."

From The First Forty-Four Films, Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol's book about Hitchcock's career from 1923 through 1956: "The next film belongs to a very different genre: American comedy as it was done before the war by Leo McCarey and Frank Capra. When Norman Krasna suggested to Hitch that he direct one of the comedies he had just sold RKO, the 'Master of Suspense' accepted with pleasure. He went about the problem very seriously, keeping [his earlier films] Champagne in mind, to some extent, but especially Rich and Strange. The result was quite curious. Hitch did not want to follow the usual technique of the genre, a technique based on simplicity and speed; only the acting style of the performers was to remain faithful to the tradition. Besides, the actors --- Robert Montgomery and Carole Lombard --- were experienced and excellent hands at comedy. They had already played the story of Mr. and Mrs. Smith many times. Hitchcock, who knows how to respect the skill of specialists, made no attempt to impose another style. Instead, he focused all his attention on the direction, which he wanted to be very characteristic of his personality.

"The originality of the form is obvious from the very first scene. A slow panoramic dolly shot shows a bedroom in disorder: clothes and various other objects are piled on the floor or draped over the furniture. The camera stops a second in front of a bed from which the top of a woman's head emerges. The camera moves forward, an eye appears, and then Carole Lombard's face. The slowness of this first shot is a radical departure from the reigning laws of American comedy. It conveys a sort of anxiety, and might just as well be used to begin a 'suspense' film. The rest of the movie follows the same principle: all the scenes are shot from a subjective point of view. On several occasions we even witness attempts at a 'subjective' camera. This forced identification with the character undercuts the laughter. Generally speaking, American comedy gets its effects from the assumption of objective observation: it is a report on madness. Here, we are accomplices of the characters. The laughter, when it does arise, abruptly shrivels up: the 'gag' is not funny to the person at whose expense it is carried out. The only times we laugh in Mr. and Mrs. Smith (and even then not without some uneasiness) are those moments in which there is an abrupt shift from one subjectivity to another. Let's take the following example.

"Their marriage having been annulled for technical reasons, Mr. and Mrs. Smith have decided to test their love by remaining single. Mr. Smith, who is dying of boredom, has already spotted his wife in the company of attentive gentlemen, and he is gnawed by jealousy. He lets one of his friends talk him into going to a restaurant. Both men are accompanied by two incredible floozies. No sooner have they sat down but Smith sees his wife and her boyfriend. Ashamed of being seen in such low company, he spots a young and beautiful woman sitting by herself at a neighboring table and pretends to be talking to her, as though she were with him. He gleefully observes that at the other end of the restaurant his wife is becoming upset. Just as he's about to glory in his victory, he sneezes [actually, in the film, he gives himself a nosebleed], and one of the floozies quickly forces him to lie back on the table as a therapeutic measure. At this, Mrs. Smith bursts out laughing. So do we ... During the first part of the scene, we have shared Smith's embarrassment and then his triumph. After the sneeze, we find ourselves on the other side of the fence, with Mrs. Smith. This leap from one 'subjectivity' to another sparks laughter, but it is not cathartic laughter since we feel that we are mocking ourselves.

"Mr. and Mrs. Smith does contain effects of pure comedy --- for example, the final image in which Carole Lombard's skis rise to form a screen between the camera and the kiss she and her husband are exchanging --- but these 'gags,' typical of American comedy, lack sparkle. On the other hand, the best moments --- and we recognize in them the auteur of Rich and Strange --- are those in which there is a 'switch to the serious': for example, the anniversary dinner during which the couple vainly try to recapture the magic of their first dates together. The new restaurant owner watches them hostilely while they eat their favorite dish, a failure, in an agonizing silence ... As in the shipwreck scene of Rich and Strange, the sense of the disintegration of love becomes almost unbearable."