# Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941 film)
**Mr. & Mrs. Smith** is a 1941 American screwball comedy directed by [Alfred Hitchcock](https://www.edgepedia.org/alfred-hitchcock) and written by Norman Krasna, starring [Carole Lombard](https://www.edgepedia.org/carole-lombard) and [Robert Montgomery](https://www.edgepedia.org/robert-montgomery-actor) as a married couple who discover that a legal technicality has voided their three-year marriage. Released by RKO Radio Pictures on 31 January 1941, it is Hitchcock's only pure screwball comedy and one of the most atypical films in his career.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/27029-MR.-AND-MRS.-SMITH) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/62627/mr-and-mrs-smith)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | 31 January 1941, RKO Radio Pictures; black and white, RCA Sound System, 8,567 feet[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/27029-MR.-AND-MRS.-SMITH) |
| Principal cast | Carole Lombard (Ann Krausheimer Smith), Robert Montgomery (David Smith), Gene Raymond (Jeff Custer)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/27029-MR.-AND-MRS.-SMITH) |
| Key crew | Director Alfred Hitchcock; story and screenplay Norman Krasna; cinematography Harry Stradling; music Edward Ward; executive producer Harry E. Edington[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/27029-MR.-AND-MRS.-SMITH) |
| Production | 5 September to 2 November 1940, with retakes on 13 November, 19 November and 4 December 1940[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/27029-MR.-AND-MRS.-SMITH) |
| Censorship | The Production Code Administration objected to racy dialogue and a toilet-flushing sound; Hitchcock kept the word "mistress" and replaced the flush with clanging pipes[3](https://academic.oup.com/kentucky-scholarship-online/book/34148/chapter-abstract/289477232) |
| Reception | 65% on Rotten Tomatoes (23 reviews); Metacritic metascore 63; a popular success at release with middling reviews[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1014325-mr_and_mrs_smith) • [5](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/mr-mrs-smith-1941/) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/62627/mr-and-mrs-smith) |
| Significance in Lombard's career | Her last picture for RKO and the penultimate performance of her career; she died in a plane crash in January 1942[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/27029-MR.-AND-MRS.-SMITH) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/62627/mr-and-mrs-smith) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
The film opens in the Manhattan apartment of lawyer David Smith (Montgomery) and his wife of three years, Ann (Lombard). The couple live by eccentric domestic rules, including a vow that neither may leave the bedroom until a quarrel is resolved.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/62627/mr-and-mrs-smith) • [6](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDOeXwgDr-4) When Ann impulsively asks whether David would marry her again if he had it to do over, he answers no.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/27029-MR.-AND-MRS.-SMITH)
That day David is visited by Harry Deever, an official from Ann's hometown, who announces that the town's redistricting to another state voided certain marriages performed there, including the Smiths'.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/27029-MR.-AND-MRS.-SMITH) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/62627/mr-and-mrs-smith) Each spouse separately learns the marriage was never legal, and neither lets on during a disastrous evening out; when bedtime passes without the proposal Ann expects, she throws David out.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/27029-MR.-AND-MRS.-SMITH) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/62627/mr-and-mrs-smith) To support herself Ann takes a department store job, which she loses after David causes a commotion there. She begins dating David's law partner Jeff Custer (Raymond), while David, prompted by a fellow dispossessed husband, Chuck Benson ([Jack Carson](https://www.edgepedia.org/jack-carson)), attempts to make her jealous with Gertie (Betty Compson), a supposed "high class girl" from whom he escapes by giving himself a nosebleed.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/27029-MR.-AND-MRS.-SMITH) The balance of the film follows David's efforts to win Ann back.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/62627/mr-and-mrs-smith)
## Production
**Casting and origins.** RKO wanted Cary Grant for David Smith, but the studio was already contractually obligated to Robert Montgomery, who was on loan from [Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer](https://www.edgepedia.org/metro-goldwyn-mayer). Hitchcock was himself on loan from [David O. Selznick](https://www.edgepedia.org/david-o-selznick)'s company.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/27029-MR.-AND-MRS.-SMITH) According to [Turner Classic Movies](https://www.edgepedia.org/turner-classic-movies), Lombard and Hitchcock were introduced socially by Selznick after he brought the filmmaker to Hollywood in 1940, and after agreeing to collaborate, both wanted Grant for the male lead; with Grant booked solid, they landed Montgomery.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/62627/mr-and-mrs-smith)
**Hitchcock's attitude.** In his later interview with [François Truffaut](https://www.edgepedia.org/francois-truffaut), Hitchcock was dismissive of the film, saying he took it as a favor to Lombard and that because he did not understand the type of people portrayed, he simply photographed Krasna's screenplay without veering from it.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/27029-MR.-AND-MRS.-SMITH) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/62627/mr-and-mrs-smith) Other accounts complicate this story: Donald Spoto's biography records Hitchcock during production declaring he wanted to direct "a typical American comedy about Typical Americans,"[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/62627/mr-and-mrs-smith) and one retrospective survey reports that RKO studio records show Hitchcock had long wanted to direct Lombard and actively pursued the project himself.[7](https://brentonfilm.com/alfred-hitchcock-collectors-guide-mr-and-mrs-smith-1941) Contemporary trade reaction was not uniformly warm; *The Hollywood Reporter* review commented that Hitchcock should stay away from comedies.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/27029-MR.-AND-MRS.-SMITH)
**On-set anecdotes.** According to an article in *Life*, Lombard directed the scene in which Hitchcock makes his cameo, strolling past Montgomery and tipping his hat in front of the apartment building.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/27029-MR.-AND-MRS.-SMITH) • [8](https://www.hitchcock.tv/mov/mrmrs_smith/smith.html) Responding to Hitchcock's remark that all actors are "cattle," Lombard had a corral built on the set holding three cows, each bearing a tag with one of the stars' names.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/27029-MR.-AND-MRS.-SMITH) Lombard made a daily ritual of decorating the fender of her Republican leading man's car with Roosevelt bumper stickers.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/62627/mr-and-mrs-smith)
**Script history and censorship.** The working title was *Mr. and Mrs.*; scripts in the RKO Archives at UCLA show Krasna also wrote drafts titled *Who Was That Lady I Seen You With?* and *No for an Answer*. [Joan Harrison](https://www.edgepedia.org/joan-harrison) was hired to work on the screenplay, but her contribution has not been confirmed.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/27029-MR.-AND-MRS.-SMITH) A study of Hitchcock and the censors records that the Production Code Administration objected primarily to racy dialogue and the sound of a toilet flushing; Hitchcock eliminated some but not all of the dialogue, retaining the word "mistress," and replaced the flush with clanging pipes.[3](https://academic.oup.com/kentucky-scholarship-online/book/34148/chapter-abstract/289477232)
## Place in Hitchcock's and Lombard's careers
The film stands outside Hitchcock's usual suspense output; one scholar of the screwball genre notes that even with two box-office stars and a script by an Academy Award-winning writer, it was only a modest success and has often been treated by Hitchcock scholars as an aberration or a one-off favor.[9](https://www.utep.edu/liberalarts/hera/journal/2015-Spring-HERA-IH-Journal.pdf) The Harvard Film Archive, screening it in a complete Hitchcock retrospective, described it as a "comedy of remarriage" and argued that Hitchcock seems at home in the genre's reliance on duplicity and role-playing, with suspense-movie touches such as the scene in which an indignant Lombard holds back Montgomery's head for a worrisome shave.[10](https://harvardfilmarchive.org/calendar/mr-and-mrs-smith-2013-09) Some modern critics have also seen Hitchcock's later cinematic techniques foreshadowed in the film.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/27029-MR.-AND-MRS.-SMITH)
For Lombard, the film was her last picture for RKO and the penultimate performance of her career.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/27029-MR.-AND-MRS.-SMITH) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/62627/mr-and-mrs-smith) Its release in January 1941 gave her career a boost, coming after a period of mixed results in dramas.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/62627/mr-and-mrs-smith) • [11](https://filozofia.uni-miskolc.hu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/WhittyStephen-2016-The-Alfred-Hitchcock-Encyclopedia.pdf)
## Reception and later history
At release the film was a popular success, though reviews were middling and some critics accused Hitchcock of slumming.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/62627/mr-and-mrs-smith) Contemporary ratings range widely: Rotten Tomatoes reports 65% on the Tomatometer from 23 reviews,[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1014325-mr_and_mrs_smith) while Metacritic's 63 metascore, based on nine critic reviews, falls in its "generally favorable" band, with recent assessments such as IndieWire's and Collider's scoring it in the low 80s.[5](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/mr-mrs-smith-1941/)
The film has kept a home-video life. Warner Archive released a restored Blu-ray in 2024, mastered from a new 4K scan of the best nitrate preservation elements, presenting 95 minutes at the 1.37:1 ratio with lossless audio; one reviewer called the transfer top-notch while judging the film itself an intriguing footnote in Hitchcock's résumé.[12](https://bluray.highdefdigest.com/131449/mrmrssmith1941warnerarchivecollection.html) The title is unrelated to the 2005 [Brad Pitt](https://www.edgepedia.org/brad-pitt) and [Angelina Jolie](https://www.edgepedia.org/angelina-jolie) action comedy of the same name, which, as the Humanities Institute notes, keeps the screwball couple premise while adapting it to the action-thriller genre.[13](https://humanitiesinstitute.org/__static/bd91fd253d4abd83adbba3f2651caeb9/mr-and-mrs-smith.pdf?dl=1)
## References
1. [Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/27029-MR.-AND-MRS.-SMITH)
2. [Jay S. Steinberg, "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," Turner Classic Movies (2003)](https://www.tcm.com/articles/62627/mr-and-mrs-smith)
3. [John Billheimer, "Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941)," Hitchcock and the Censors, University Press of Kentucky (2019)](https://academic.oup.com/kentucky-scholarship-online/book/34148/chapter-abstract/289477232)
4. [Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1014325-mr_and_mrs_smith)
5. [Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941), Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/mr-mrs-smith-1941/)
6. [Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941), Warner Archive Collection trailer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDOeXwgDr-4)
7. [Brent Reid, "Alfred Hitchcock Collectors Guide: Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941)," Brenton Film (2024)](https://brentonfilm.com/alfred-hitchcock-collectors-guide-mr-and-mrs-smith-1941)
8. [Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941), hitchcock.tv](https://www.hitchcock.tv/mov/mrmrs_smith/smith.html)
9. [William Covey, "Mr. and Mrs. Smith: Alfred Hitchcock's Experiment in Screwball Comedy," HERA journal (2015)](https://www.utep.edu/liberalarts/hera/journal/2015-Spring-HERA-IH-Journal.pdf)
10. [Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Harvard Film Archive (2013)](https://harvardfilmarchive.org/calendar/mr-and-mrs-smith-2013-09)
11. [Stephen Whitty, The Alfred Hitchcock Encyclopedia (2016)](https://filozofia.uni-miskolc.hu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/WhittyStephen-2016-The-Alfred-Hitchcock-Encyclopedia.pdf)
12. [Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941) Warner Archive Collection Blu-ray review, High-Def Digest (2024)](https://bluray.highdefdigest.com/131449/mrmrssmith1941warnerarchivecollection.html)
13. [Mr. and Mrs. Smith study guide, Humanities Institute](https://humanitiesinstitute.org/__static/bd91fd253d4abd83adbba3f2651caeb9/mr-and-mrs-smith.pdf?dl=1)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1940s*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license