All actors are cattle, Hitchcock once said. In response, Carole Lombard arranged in 1940 for three heifers labelled with cast members’ names to be waiting for him on the set of Mr & Mrs Smith.
He would have got on famously with Evie, who plays the title role in First Cow, and makes her entrance gliding along the Columbia River on a barge in the afternoon sun. Of the film itself, he might have been less enamoured. Though it begins with the discovery of two skeletons, this is no murder mystery. The plot features a string of nocturnal thefts, but it’s hardly To Catch a Thief. The location is a trading post in the Pacific Northwest in the early 19th century, populated by immigrants of different nationalities, but it isn’t a Western either. Discount those options and what’s left is a pleasing oddity: a bromance set against a backdrop of baking.
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