Hands Across the Table (1935)
Writing about Bringing Up Baby put me in mind of another of my favorite 1930s comedies, Hands Across the Table. I discovered Carole Lombard relatively recently. It is always exciting to find a new film or actor, and as soon as I became acquainted, so to speak, with Carole Lombard, I re-arranged my Netflix queue to watch every Lombard film I could find. She is magnificent! One of the rare actresses who is funny and glamorous and gorgeous. It might be that her glamour makes her even funnier since you don't expect her to be such a goof. Indeed, she didn't do much comedy until the 1930s (she started in films at the age of 12 in 1921).
She can smolder like Marlene Dietrich and she looks a little like Grace Kelly, but then she can let go and play screwball and slapstick with the best of them. Loads of fun to watch. She is a little unusual, too, in that she is great as a dizzy heiress as in My Man Godfrey but also excellent as a lower-middle class working woman. She plays the latter in Hands Across the Table. Her male counterpart in the movie is Fred MacMurray. He might be best known for his later work when he played fathers and older characters...the TV show My Three Sons (1960-1972), The Absent Minded Professor (1961), The Happiest Millionaire (1967), etc. But he was also great in dramas and film noir as in Double Indemnity (1944). And I like him very much in his 1930s comedic roles. He was quite a hunk! And he could play and joke and fall down...
MacMurray and Lombard were in four films together: Hands Across The Table, The Princess Comes Across (1936), Swing High, Swing Low (1937), and True Confession (1937). I like Hands Across the Table the most. The Princess Comes Across can't match it for plot, Swing High is sort of a screwball comedy that turns tragic all of the sudden, and True Confession is a little manic.
In many ways, Hands Across The Table is a typical Depression-era romantic comedy. The basic plot was used over and over in the 1930s: A woman is struggling to make ends meet as a manicurist (this film), or dance instructor, or store clerk or secretary. She is worn down with the struggle and is unabashedly honest about trying to marry rich, never mind love, in order to get out of her hum drum existence and live the easy life she has always imagined. Usually there is a little backstory explaining her cynical perspective; she says that her parents married for love but the struggle to survive made the love disappear. She is not going to make the same mistake!
Regi Allen (Carole Lombard) is well positioned to make a financially successful match. She works in a swanky hotel in the lobby salon and her clients are almost all wealthy men. (Now manicures and pedicures are mainly for women, but as this movie shows, it has not always been that way!) The receptionist tries to help Regi in her quest by giving her the appointments with rich, single men. In walks Theodore Drew III (Fred MacMurray).
Regi knows this is her chance. She is so nervous that she keeps botching the manicure, stabbing Drew's cuticles and filing too hard. It is funny but painful, too. He leaves the salon with every finger bandaged. But he still asks Regi to dinner.
They have a marvelous time, until Regi learns that Drew is just as poor as she is. His fortune has somehow disappeared and he is also on the lookout for a rich mate. Regi is furious, but she admits grudgingly that she has the same goal and the same attitude. Drew is engaged to a rich girl and will marry her in about a week. In the meantime, he has nowhere to stay and no money. Regi agrees to help him out until his marriage. In a fairly risque move, Drew moves into Regi's small apartment and they set up housekeeping together. They have a fantastic time living together, too. Regi works all day and Drew stays home to cook and clean. They get to rehearse being married, in a sense. (Hmm quite similar to The More the Merrier! Interesting how these movies get their characters to live together before marriage when that wasn't okay...) To Regi and Drew's surprise and dismay, they like being with each other. But no, they must marry for money!
So Drew is planning to marry his heiress, and Regi has plans for another rich client, Allen Macklyn, played by Ralph Bellamy.
Poor Ralph. He never gets the girl. See His Girl Friday (1940), The Awful Truth (1937), etc. He always plays the steady, slightly boring man who is devoted to his mother, competing with a handsome rascal like Cary Grant or Fred MacMurray. Unfortunately, the women always choose the rascal. To make Bellamy's position even more pitiful, he is confined to a wheelchair in Hands Across the Table. Still, it seems like he might get Regi. He is rich and kind and he is very fond of her. He is ready to propose. And she likes him, too.
But he never really has a chance when compared to the excitement and humor that Drew can provide. Besides, despite Regi's cynicism, love must always triumph!
The plot is simple but well executed and it does have some nice twists, and the actors are terrific. Lombard and MacMurray are wonderful together. This movie has lots of giggles and great dialogue as well as chemistry-filled moments to break up the laughs.
This is the prettiest street in town, in my opinion. Up on the cliff there is a white castle.
You can see it better in this picture. We hiked all the way up. But not before letting this train pass. Cool, right?
Although the tea and strudel were nothing special, the castle/cafe did offer a nice view of the Decin Castle. I thought it was a monastery and had created an elaborate daydream about the monks copying manuscripts in their silent and massive library, but turns out it was a fort and then a castle and then a garrison for German and Soviet troops in the 20th century. Though it must have been quiet at some point because Chopin was able to concentrate and write his "Valse in A Flat Major" at the castle. 
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