Hands Across the Table

Director: Mitchell Leisen
Year Released: 1935
Rating: 2.0

Status fixated manicurist Regi Allen (Carole Lombard) thinks of nothing else but marrying a wealthy husband: first, she works on the nails of paraplegic Allen Macklyn (Ralph Bellamy), who was injured in a plane accident, and then gives presumably rich Theodore Drew III (Fred MacMurray) a botched manicure, but it turns out he's actually jobless, poor and engaged to heiress Vivian Snowden (Astrid Allwyn).  Although quite a successful release at the time, it's entirely too easy to see where it's going well in advance and not as "screwy" as it could have been: "birds of a feather" Regi and Theodore become "friends," his relationship with Vivian is compromised, they have a fight, she uses Allen (who is genuinely enamored with her) as a human pillow ... and then realizes love is all you need, and so on (that is, until the bills roll in and his gig as a milkman or whatever isn't lucrative).  Lombard's simply glowing - we lost a legend at an early age - but this is little more than a passing distraction; the script doesn't have many good lines, but this exchange rings true to me: "Do you dream?"  "No."  "You should, you meet a better class of people."