Do You Remember Your First Time?

Way back in 1983, my husband and I moved to California and discovered the true joy of Los Angeles TV stations with their immense movie libraries.  My taped movie collection grew rapidly with a lot of favorites, many of which I had never seen before.  I really disliked having commercials in my movie recordings, so I would dub my tapes to edit them out.  It was time-consuming (remember those huge VHS recorders!), but a great excuse to watch many wonderful movies. 

It was that summer when, with a glass (or two) of white wine in hand, I was dubbing Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941) which I had not seen before.  I knew who Bob was, but mostly as a TV producer who had also been President Eisenhower's media advisor.  Anyway, I got to the nightclub scene where Bob (David) is desperate to escape his date and avoid being seen by Carole Lombard (Ann Smith).  He decides he will give himself a bloody nose, not the greatest excuse, but a truly funny scene. 

It was midway through the scene, between hitting himself in the nose and finally resulting to the salt shaker, that I realized I was watching an excellent actor who was having as much fun doing the routine as I was enjoying it.  Hey, Mr. Montgomery, besides being a very intelligent and handsome man, was also quite funny.  I fell in love with him on the spot. 

33 years later, after watching all his movies (numerous times!) and reading everything I can find about him, I have not discovered a thing about him that disproves that moment of enlightenment.  (And, no, it wasn't the wine, either!)