Title: Episode 25: \"Mr. & Mrs. Smith\" (1941) feat. Olympia Kiriakou
Show: Foreign Correspondents: Deeper into Hitchcock
Date: 2021-10-12
URL: https://youtu.be/IoD9wBwNH8I
Duration: 33:00

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[00:00] [Music] you'll see carol lombard and robert montgomery together for the first time you'll see one of the funniest comedy situations that ever hit the screen you'll see what happens when mr and mrs smith discover that they were never legally married [Music] welcome to another episode of foreign

[00:30] correspondents deeper into hitchcock podcast my name is michael leschick and i'm joined as always by my co-host sebastian smolinski hello this is the 25th episode of our podcast we are slowly reaching the midpoint of alfred hitchcock's filmography and we discuss each hitchcock film in his filmography in the chronological order trying to add a little bit of eastern european perspective to it today we have a special treat for you uh special guest that we will introduce in

[01:00] a second uh however uh first of all let's discuss the film briefly ourselves the film is mr and mrs smith not to be confused with the brangelina mr and mrs smith and the film starts robert montgomery and crucially carol lombard we will be talking later in the episode with olympia kiriakou who wrote a book becoming carol lombard we will be talking about the star persona of this wonderful actress prematurely deceased and about this particular movie and its

[01:32] place in carl lombard cannon and in alfred hitchcock the first thing to know about mr and mrs smith is that it's a scribble comedy it's a film that doesn't seem like a hitchcock film at all it's a it's a pure comedy with no no suspense elements and it fits very nicely with the general themes of screwballs such as the comedy of remarriage carol lombard and robert montgomery play a married couple who have sudden realization or rather

[02:02] discovery that they are not truly married after all that the certificate that they got a few years ago is not actually valid so there's this question whether they will remarry again and how they will handle the information between them because they learn about it separately and there's a little bit of suspense in how each of each of them will deal with with this fresh knowledge of actually being single will they remarry or not the whole comedy is built around that so uh before we talk to

[02:32] olympia sebastian did you like the movie uh i'm so so about it to be honest but i think that the great part of rewatching this film was also rewatching carl lombard on screen and carl lombard is magnificent as always absolutely she's one of the key comedians of 1930s she played in movies such as 20th century by howard hawks nothing sacred by william wellman

[03:03] my men got free and directed by gregory lacava hands across the table by mitchell lyson and many many others unfortunately her life was tragically cut short in a famous accident she was only 33 when she when she um passed away and we will talk about this of course with olympia i was also a little bit disappointed by this film i remember watching it many years ago at least 20 years ago and back then it seemed to me very witty very funny i you know i really enjoyed it now i think as

[03:34] i became i think a little bit more discerning in my taste for screwball i think it's definitely one of the lesser screwball comedies norman krasna the screenwriter of it also wasn't the top screenwriter of that of the time although he he wrote many many movies and this film also i think and we will explore it a little bit more later on has a big streak of misogyny playing in the background i think that you know especially the way hitchcock treats um

[04:06] other women in the film but also a little bit carol lombard especially by stressing how much she gained weight in between the the fake marriage and now by by giving us big close-ups of her uh dress scenes you know of her dress coming at the seams i thought okay you probably were gaining a lot of weight yourself at that time and you are transferring it on to this female character uh but i think you know he was actually

[04:37] doing that in an a little bit ungraceful even way especially since this was his leading uh leading lady there there are moments that that i enjoy still in the film but i would say it it's one of those lesser scribble comedies which will forever hold the fascination of being directed by hitchcock because it's such a unusual hitchcock project probably we would have to compare it to one of the silent films that were almost like comedies like farmer's wife for example but so yes it will forever

[05:08] remain the single comedy pure comedy suspense less in hitchcock's over exactly and there is this paradox that for example peter bogdanovich mentioned that if you don't know it's a hitchcock movie you probably won't know you know without reading the credits but if you do know then you can approach it from that perspective and you can look for these signs of hitchcock's mastery or hitchcock signature so you know it's a

[05:38] maybe it's a bit of a convoluted way of claiming that it's another of these authors movies so let's explore it now with olympia kiriakou the author of becoming carol lombard a truly pioneering study of this particular and very beloved stars persona we will be joined by olympia via zoom we are super excited to have you as a scholar uh not a hitchcock scholar per

[06:08] se but you know we are also very excited that we can you know approach his films from different perspectives and it's i think also very exciting that your book is so new so fresh it's your phd dissertation right yes yeah i wrote it and then i adapted it to the book so i know it's a result of many years of research and of many years of being with carol lombard and everything that was written or recorded about her

[06:39] so if you we could start by you know talking about your story your adventure with this book with this project um what brought you to it and what was the most pleasant part of it and the most difficult one of writing a first you know scholarly book as you as you as you mentioned in the introduction the first scholarly book about carol lombard so i've been researching and been basically a fan of carol lombard since i was maybe like 19 or so when i was in my undergrad in college i

[07:11] had an opportunity i got a grant from my university to go to the library of congress to do some research so i had worked on a project on some of her silent comedies with max sennett and so i finished that project i put carol on the back burner while i was doing my masters and then i picked up the project again for my phd because i really felt that well carol lombard's a very you know popular screwball comedian there's been very little written about her in terms of her other work

[07:41] and her star persona so i really wanted to dive into those aspects of her career more deeply i think the the best part was getting to watch some as i said before some of her silent films um a lot of these are unfortunately an archive so they're not necessarily accessible to you know the average person um but i had such an it's such an honor to to watch some of these films and to see the

[08:11] sort of the how her performance um her performative abilities evolved um and so that was really cool i think the hardest part whenever you write about a a hollywood star especially from that classical era so much of the information about them is filtered through like the studio publicity departments and you know fan magazines so everything you read about them as a person you kind of have to think well you know

[08:41] how much of this has been edited to fit like a certain persona so always having to keep that um that info that in mind when dealing with um aspects of her career off the screen um and her star persona her marriages for example so and especially difficult with someone like lombard who you know never gave really any you know candid interviews she didn't have a diary so uh so it was it was challenging in that respect but to work through it yeah and we get to know more about her

[09:13] thanks to your research and for example the uh surrounding events uh behind the the accident right you you tried to establish the exact exact date that was something very interesting for me and i saw a few of her i mean most of her scribble comedies not many other movies but i saw these and i was surprised for example to discover that you know this this accident had such an impact in the 20s on her career and basically yeah i think your argument

[09:43] before we'll you know approach mr and mrs smith i think your argument is very interesting that we should uh maybe separate her slapstick period from her scribble period and that's if you could maybe say a bit about it for those listeners who you know haven't read your book yet uh why do you think that's the case and uh was it difficult to argue that you know against many scholars who or just commentators who you know treated as one definitely um so for those of you who

[10:15] are not familiar with carol lombard she worked for max senate from 1927 to 1929 and then her first screwball comedy wasn't until 1934. so you have this fairly substantial win uh period in her you know late silent early sound career where she didn't make really any comedies um certainly not anything resembling uh screwball at that during that period she had just signed to paramount and they sort of positioned her as like a glamour girl

[10:47] almost she had a very refined and sophisticated star persona very different from uh what audiences would have uh known in the mid to late 30s and so for me i always found it very curious when i when i've read scholars argue that there's some sort of connection between her slapstick and her screwball work because they're because of that um huge chunk in her career um and really during that time that that you know that five-year period

[11:18] uh i think paramount really didn't know what to do with her with her her as a star her as a performer there was no real indication during that period that she was going to be a comedian um so to make that connection between her slapstick and her screwball work is really i think kind of unfounded and never mind that i don't want to go into sort of like the technicalities of slapstick and screwball but they are fairly just you know different uh genres of comedy so um well you can definitely identify some

[11:51] elements of slapstick in her later scribble work particularly the physical comedy they are very distinct periods of her career um i also wanted to ask about uh how slowly slowly approaching mr and mrs smith because this is not a film usually that is mentioned in the carl lombard cannon i mean we usually think of her work with gregory lacava or or mitchell lyson or ernest lubich but here there's this unlikely connection that alfred hitchcock actually directs a

[12:22] scribble comedy he he directs carol lombard and uh and he delivers a film that's probably unlike any other film that he made but how how do you approach this film is it a lesser lombard film or is it a typical lumber production of that time how how do you where do you where would you place it in let's say carl lombard cannon um i place it um it's not necessarily as physical as her

[12:54] other screwball comedies carol lombard uh compared to some of her contemporaries was there it was uh you know physical comedy was a huge part of her um of her performance so it's not it's in a different category than let's say like a nothing sacred where she's very active and combative um and even with um my man godfrey um but i think it has still those elements of you know the rema the remarriage uh plot of course um it's uh it's very sophisticated type

[13:24] of comedy um so i think i i categorize it as a screwball with like a little asterisk maybe so why do you think she was so attracted to hitchcock as a director why did she think that you know that was a good idea to invite him because that's the that's the regular story about this film right that she wanted to work with hitchcock and he did it as a courtesy so it's not i'm not asking what did she think but why do you think that based on you know her ever and and hitchcock's effort

[13:56] where are these connections maybe this where do these sensibilities meet in your opinion that's a good question and i think when you watch mr mrs smith it doesn't seem like a hitchcock film at all but i think there are still those elements elements of like the the and sort of like the witty comedy that you do get in hitchcock's more uh you know the like the thrillers for example and i think that i i mean i can't speak for carol lombard

[14:27] but i think maybe she saw that and thought that maybe that could be translated into like a you know feature film and i think you know hitchcock's reputation at that point he was you know coming he's just in america right and so i i assume for her it was very exciting to be able to work with this you know director that she really hadn't uh had very little contact with at that point they were they were friends they were friendly but um you know i think for her it was probably an

[14:58] exciting and new opportunity um how do you feel about um the screen partners of lombard i i mean my perception and of course i you know i only know some of her films but you know the tone of her performance depends very much on who is she paired with she's quite different with you know john barrymore in 20th century she's very different with frederick march and nothing sacred so here robert montgomery

[15:29] who wasn't you know the let's say the the true leading man of of of scribble comedy i would say he was sort of a second tier uh in that in that canon how how do you perceive her in pairing with him as as his screen screen partner um personally it's not my favorite screen pairing i don't know if they necessarily obviously their relationship is adversarial in the film but i don't i still don't know if there is that much chemistry between the two so it's hard

[16:01] for me personally as a viewer to sort of buy into their relate to the relationship between ann and david smith um i don't know i think in that respect for me personally it's as we talked about before i it's a scribble comedy classify it as one of her screwball comedies but i think it's one of the weaker ones because of that relationship because she doesn't have that um that chemistry like she does with a william powell um or even a frederick march

[16:31] um so well it's it's enjoyable it's not my favorite yeah i also think about montgomery more as a this noir figure right not a scribble one so i had this feeling and i don't know if any of you agree that his friend that the lawyer he's working with he needs to be even more stiff than the robert montgomery character to make robert montgomery at least a bit adventurous right there is there there has to be this juxtaposition to make him

[17:03] more interesting when he's next to lombard absolutely i think there's like as you said there's like a hardness to robert montgomery's performance that i don't know if it necessarily meshes that well with with lombard style and then gene rayburn he's um obviously he's supposed to be you know weak character he doesn't really have a backbone and we see that culminate in their their final scene together but yeah i think there's something missing even with him too i don't know if if i was anne i don't know

[17:34] if i'd really care that much to be with either of them neither of them are particularly um interesting male characters there's also this running um trope of a hitchcock blonde throughout throughout hitchcock's ever and you know we the probably the epitome of that is tippy hedren or or kim novak um usually hitchcock is quite punishing in in his relationship to those characters his and usually to the actresses as well who

[18:05] played those characters can we can we fit carol lombard into the lineage of hitchcock blondes is she a version of a of a hitchcock want or is she a different creation different creature altogether i think she she definitely for me is a little bit different and i think the relationship that she had with him was also different i think she sort of took that um that relationship that he was known for to have with his with his

[18:36] actresses and kind of push back on that for example she brought cattle to the set and she put little name tags on each of the cows uh one said carol lombard once said robert montgomery once said alfred hitchcock to play upon his you know actors are like cattle um statement um she is also the only person i believe that ever directed his cameo so she had a little bit of agency in that filmmaking process so for those of you who haven't seen the film hitchcock comes out of david and

[19:07] anne's apartment and the camera pulls back um and you see hitchcock walking uh down the street carol directed that and allegedly she kind of was you know egging him on a little bit saying oh you know that's terrible we got to keep doing it again so they did like you know 20 30 takes of that just to sort of play with him yeah that's that's a great great anecdote and i also uh i've read in leonard uh jeff's book about hitchcock you know this anecdote that they had very good relationship on set and that

[19:39] hitchcock maybe that could be something disappointing for him but he couldn't embarrass her you know she was and once again we come back to the first part of your book to the 1920s the the flapper figure and this you know outgoing very brave girl and she so you know he couldn't embarrass her he coming from this more uh prudish or equally prudish but uh in different sense british culture they were like almost like equals so i think that's also a very nice story of uh maybe of a working relationship that

[20:12] was of course cut to too fast right i mean abruptly by the by the tragic accident in which carol lombard died but there are these fantasies about lombard as a hitchcock heroine i mean some people fantasize what could happen later in the 40s right yeah oh absolutely that's one of the things that i think about so often is you know had her had her she uh lived uh what her career might have become and i often wonder what

[20:42] would she have been like in like for example a film noir or even you know a hitchcock thriller right i think she had the capability to uh play those types of roles we see that a little bit in her late career in her late 1930s early 1940s uh career where she transitioned from screwball to drama and so i think that might have been a natural progression for her so it's the always heartbreaking to think such a missed opportunity professionally

[21:13] yeah i always kind kind of imagined that her career might have taken similar route to barbara stanwix who you know late in career she had those tv appearances and you know it's such a such a tremendous loss that that you know that that career was cut cut short yeah but i think also lucille ball is like one of the inheritors of lombard right uh so yes so they were actually very good friends um and uh carol was like her

[21:45] mentor uh and a lot in lucille ball's one of her autobiography she says that carol allegedly came to her in a dream and sort of encouraged her to pursue i love lucy and you can definitely see similarities in their comedic styles so i can imagine that you know lombard when she died she was 33 unfortunately hollywood doesn't really allow women to age very gracefully so i can imagine she would have had to transition into perhaps um

[22:16] you know away from the leading leading lady into something else whether it be you know production television um as you said following uh you know like a barbara stanley's footsteps transitioning into another type of role so it's uh it's interesting to think of the possibilities so probably this this line between noir heroine and scribal heroine wasn't as clear right and or generally between comedy and and more serious modes uh as barbara stanweek shows and um i wanted

[22:48] to ask you you both actually about the sexual innuendos we find in this film of course we find them in almost every hitchcock movie but in this case the the story is interesting because um many americans american critics were kind of proud of hitchcock that he made this very american movie which is his first film set in new york the the very first image is uh you know manhattan skyline or like you know uh big buildings in manhattan

[23:19] and he so he could do something very american but at the same time i would argue that there are some british traits you know like this for example his uh nastiness towards female characters i think it's something he actually brought from from uk but my question is does it work for you still i mean can you sense it as this as this screwable late actually quite a late scribble comment the early 40s that still wants to play with the code in some ways does it does is it you know something you feel

[23:50] when you watch this film absolutely i think there are the sort of the illusions to sex are so potent in this film um one that stands out for me particular um and i write about it in my book is the very final scene where they're in the ski lodge um and cara lombard's character anne she's having trouble putting on her skis and at some point she's sort of feigning like she's uh difficulty she can get her ski on but she wants david to help her um and then

[24:21] eventually he does and the camera cuts to a shot of her skis sort of crisscrossing and that's how the film ends and so i think that's sort of like this allusion to sex you know what's gonna happen next we don't have to say it explicitly right and so i think in that way uh where you know you have traditional screwball comedy the sort of physicality is that allusion to sex in in hitchcock's in in mr mrs smith it's that sort of the more subtle uh visual innuendo

[24:53] i mean that's just one example it's throughout the film but uh i think that's the most explicit right i also think that you know this is a rather late um screwball comment it's it's a wartime film right it was made during uh during the war i think you know it it's on the very sort of tail end of the of this except of course for late masterpiece which is adam's rib but um but here i i think that you know it's also depending on the quality of the writing and i think that you know the screenplay by norman krasna

[25:26] is it has its better moments and its worst moments it's not you know the most brilliant uh script he wrote many many movies which were sort of like this middle you know shelf of of of of dialogue um and brilliance let's say but one last question that i had had to do also with this particular moment in the reception of carol lombard's career how was she received at that particular time she was definitely you know seen as one of those

[25:57] scribble ladies in the 1930s and then you know should play in another wartime film which is to be or not to be but what was what was she seen as in 1941 by the american public so mr mrs smith is actually a very pivotal point in that late career um in 1937 she her contract was paramount ended and it was at that time where she basically said you know i'm tired of being uh typecast as a screwball comedian i

[26:28] want to move into drama so from 1939 to 1940 she made four back-to-back dramas and unfortunately um well they were critical successes the public didn't really accept her in those types of roles they kind of wanted more super ball from carol um and so i think the the poor box office performances of those films really turned her off from pursuing more of those types of projects so mr mrs smith it was the last film that she made in a three picture deal with rko

[27:00] and that was her essentially her return to comedy and i i think in that way it was sort of her coming home it was a very comfortable type of role um well it's not scribble as we talked about before it's not screwball in like the my man godfrey kind of sense it was a much more familiar type of role that uh you know audiences uh would have wanted to see her in and so i think for her in that way this film was um an enjoyable one to make yeah and also to comment upon it uh also

[27:32] in your book in the chapter about her scribble comedies you pursue this line that maybe there were some personal reverberations of this film meaning that you know she was now uh a wife i think right wife of clark gable or just a um partner they were married yes so so that this film in a way also may mirror you know their mature relationship right that there's these parameters of stardom were kind of connecting these two these

[28:03] two spheres absolutely yes she began dating clark gable in 1936 and they got married in 1939 and so by that point by 1939 to 1942 when she died uh there was this sort of tension between maintaining her own i think independent identity and then being labeled as you know mrs clark gable and i think you get that same sense with ann and mr mrs smith and that you know she

[28:33] still loves david i think that's quite clear by the end of the film but she does also like that taste of independence and so you do see those parallels between you know screen uh you know screen character and you know off screen uh persona right they're they're really merging in such a unique way in this film yeah i'm i have like one or two questions to wrap up slowly uh but yeah i think we you know one of the

[29:05] let's say aims of this of our meeting could be to to claim that mr and mrs smith is a forgotten masterpiece of hitchcock and carol lombard but apparently that's not really the case i think all of us has have this more of a lukewarm approach to this film and hitchcock conveniently almost went outside of the picture of our conversation which is very fine because you know part of of your study and of contemporary studies of hollywood is to the center directors right after so many

[29:36] decades of them being at the center my biggest problem with this film is probably pacing i i just watching mr and mrs smith and then watching gregory la cavas or horde hoaxes movies make it clear that at least in this case hitchcock wasn't up to the task when it comes to the timing that's for me that's that's the biggest problem i have with this film uh but also i i cannot stop thinking that um this let's say perfect setup of this

[30:07] marital problems in a single apartment because apartment plays an important role in this film was elaborated by hitchcock later for example in rear window so maybe that film was you know important in certain certain respects uh that's more of a more of an observation but on a more personal note i wanted to ask you about to be or not to be so the last carl lombard film because i always tell to my us friends and polish friends generally that it's probably the best classical hollywood

[30:39] movie set in poland right so just a simple question do you like this film i mean do you find it enjoyable as much as we do oh absolutely it's my favorite cara lombard film and it's probably one of my favorite comedies from the 40s i think it's spectacular um and i think carol fits so well into that lubitsch world um and i i mean i think unfortunately so many elements of it are still so relevant today um i always played in uh one of my film

[31:11] history classes and i'm so thrilled that my students always are so into it they are so receptive of of the film and of its comedy it's fantastic the last thing um do you have any other uh book projects on your horizon because that was a huge thing probably that you you know not probably it was a huge huge huge book a very important project do you have some other plans professional plans now um so i also and aside from carol i also

[31:43] work a lot on disney stuff so i have some i have a chapter coming out in the book um next year in terms of like a big project i think i'm going to start tackling clark gable in particular his politics he was unfortunately very involved in huack he was like one of the basically the founding members of huak he never testified so i think that's like an element of his persona that needs to really be explored um so we'll be looking forward to that well thank you so much this was a real honor

[32:14] and a pleasure and we are sure that this conversation will bring you know even more attention to to both to your book and to carol lombard who unfortunately passed away so early but she you know left all those wonderful roles so it was a real pleasure to talk to you thank you very much for having me i really enjoyed talking about mr mrs smith and carol with you both thank you so much have a wonderful day it was really wonderful to have olympia as our guest i feel that the subjects that we were talking about were very illuminated by by her presence so

[32:44] i think we all agreed that it's not our favorite favorite hitchcock film um next episode we will discuss suspicion which definitely has more of a suspenseful streak we will be seeing cary grant and will be rejoining joanne fontaine who was already in hitchcock's rebecca are you looking forward to suspicion very much very much so mostly because i like cary grant in this you know no
