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CAROLE LOMBARD and FRED MacMURRAY have chemistry in this warm romantic comedy about two people who are actually yearning to marry into wealth, but find that love conquers all. RALPH BELLAMY as "the other man" makes it a certainty that Lombard will fall in love with MacMurray for the final reel, so there's no guessing as to how it all turns out.

But Mitchell Leisen keeps the pace brisk for the running time of an hour and twenty minutes, the script that Norman Krasna and others penned is bright and funny, and everyone is seen to advantage. Lombard has probably seldom had such beguiling close-ups and she was a true, classic beauty with a flair for this brand of romantic comedy. MacMurray too has a deft touch with light material and is a good match for her as a playboy who'd rather fall in love with a rich woman but changes his mind when he meets Lombard.

Director Leisen can be proud of his career, which included gems like this and serious dramas like "Hold Back the Dawn" and "To Each His Own." He's probably one of Hollywood's most underrated directors and is in good form here.

The supporting cast gets a lift from RUTH DONNELLY and WILLIAM DEMAREST.

Summing up: Enjoyable nonsense, it's formula fluff given substance by a clever script and fine direction.

"Hands Across the Table" is a sparkling and enjoyable screwball romance, directed with an airy grace by the underrated Paramount stylist Mitchell Leisen, whose "Easy Living"(1937) and "Swing High, Swing Low"(1937) are two of the greatest classics of the 1930s. "Hands" is a minor work to be sure, but it is enjoyable and worthwhile for showcasing the comedic talents of Carole Lombard as the gold-digging manicurist who falls for a former millionaire playboy, played by Fred MacMurray. Ralph Bellamy plays Lombard's rejected suitor, a role that somehow prefigures his role in Hawks' "His Girl Friday".

Hands Across the Table is the first of four films that Paramount teamed Fred MacMurray and Carole Lombard in. It's one of MacMurray's earliest film and he's playing what he would perennially be typecast as, a light leading man. That is until Double Indemnity showed just how dramatic he could be.

The hands across the table refer to those hands that a manicurist deals with and Lombard is a manicurist. This is the middle of the Great Depression and Lombard working in a hotel figures she can snag a millionaire. She actually does in the person of Ralph Bellamy.

But figuring to trade higher she meets Fred MacMurray who has the nice WASPy rich sounding name of Theodore Drew III. Problem is as he says to Lombard, the family fortune crashed in 1929. He's set his sights on a rich heiress, Astrid Allwyn, who will be able to support him in the style he was previously accustomed to.

Director Mitchell Leisen keeps the proceedings light and airy and its obvious that MacMurray and Lombard are suited for each other on the screen. No accident that they made three successive films, all of them money makers.

Funniest scene in the film how MacMurray scares away William Demarest as a prospective suitor for Lombard. Worth the price of the VHS tape alone.

On top of being a huge fan of classic film for goodness knows how long, my main reason for seeing 'Hands Across the Table' was Carole Lombard. A lovely and always well worth watching actress who died tragically, in one of the worst and most tragic ways to die, far too young with so much more to give. It is always interesting too to see older films with a mix of comedy and romance.

'Hands Across the Table' is another one of Lombard's four (too few as they worked so well together) teamings with Fred MacMurray, in fact it was actually their first. The others being 'The Princess Comes Across', 'True Confession' and 'Swing High, Swing Low'. Of the four, 'Hands Across the Table' gets my vote as the best of them. Although the other three had much to enjoy without being flawless of course, this, while not perfect, was on the most part an utter delight. It may not be quite one of the greatest screwball comedies, but it certainly shows why witty and sophisticated comedy appeals to me so much and does it with class and charm.

Maybe it does get a little over-serious towards the end and it slows down slightly at this point, but there is very little at all to criticise with 'Hands Across the Table'.

The good things are a great many, and in terms of quantity they are absolutely great. 'Hands Across the Table' is a great looking film, it's sumptuously shot with beautiful costumes and the camera clearly loves Lombard. The music fits amiably and doesn't sound stock or at odds with the film. Mitchell Leisen directs with a very light and sure-footed touch that stops 'Hands Across the Table' from getting too heavy.

Absolutely loved the script, which sparkles in its wit and the sophistication is elegance personified, nothing distasteful or vulgar here. The story is a slight one with not many surprises perhaps, but it is adroitly paced and never less than charming and sweet without being cloying. The ending is really quite beautiful and packs a punch.

Lombard expectedly is wonderful, exuding glamour and enjoying herself to the hilt, her trademark zaniness and delicacy perfectly captured. MacMurray is in an early role here and for me he did have good comic timing and avoided playing the role too heavily or overly-seriously, even if became more comfortable and even more assured in his later films and in his later outings with Lombard. Their romantic chemistry works a charm and is more than believable throughout. The supporting cast are just as strong, Ralph Bellamy and Ruth Donnelly marvellous.

In conclusion, a lovely, delightful film and treats for admirers of Lombard. 8/10

Carole Lombard was one of Hollywood's finest comediennes; she worked best when she was backed by an equally strong male lead – in this case, it's Fred MacMurray, with whom she must have clicked because they appeared together three more times (two of these films, THE PRINCESS COMES ACROSS [1936] and TRUE CONFESSION [1937], are also included in Universal's 2-Disc Lombard collection and I should get to them in the next couple of days).

The comic style of the film falls somewhere between sophisticated and screwball: lavish settings and stuffy aristocratic characters are mingled with the often zany working-class (keeping their chin up during the Depression but, in Lombard's case, harboring a desire to marry into money); the title refers to her job as a manicurist. Typically for this type of film, when she sets her eyes on a gentleman of title – who's young and handsome to boot (MacMurray) – he turns out to be engaged to an even wealthier lady (Astrid Allwyn), because he's himself penniless! Running after her (the term is put lightly here, since he's actually wheelchair-bound) is an ex-air ace played by the actor who cornered the market around this time in "Other Man" roles, Ralph Bellamy, who's naturally got a lot of money and thinks of Lombard as a perfect match – but his love goes unrequited.

The mixture includes slapstick, wisecracks, romance, drama and even a bit of sentimentality (Lombard spends a good part of the last act sobbing). Still, as always in these more innocent times (where, for instance, a woman has to turn around when the man she's living with – albeit platonically, for the moment – is about to wear his pants!), none of the characters are really unsympathetic…so that we don't even despise the jilted lovers, who are understanding enough to know when to give up. The ending of the film is a classic: Lombard and MacMurray cause a traffic jam to look for a missing penny on which they've staked the course of their future! Appearing in one scene as a prospective boyfriend of Lombard's (whom MacMurray scares away) is future Preston Sturges regular William Demarest.

The film was shown in the early 1990s on late-night Italian TV in its original language with forced Italian subtitles, but I had missed it (the same thing is true for the afore-mentioned THE PRINCESS COMES ACROSS and MacMurray's other film with Leisen – TAKE A LETTER, DARLING [1942]); I did, however, acquire some of the director's other great work this way – most of which is, regrettably, still unavailable on DVD...