Hands Across the Table

After telling a friendly paraplegic that she's after money, not love, hotel manicurist Lombard bumps into MacMurray's impecunious man-about-town hopscotching down the corridor, and her personal credo slowly crumbles. But not in the riotous way of some other Paramount comedies from the period: Leisen skilfully moves his players through some occasionally creaky set pieces (a meal full of hiccups, a simulated long-distance telephone call) to arrive, in the last half-hour, at thoughtful scenes of considerable tenderness whose erotic undertow prevails even when MacMurray is bared to the waist under a sun lamp. And Lombard, in the first part tailor-made for her, proves herself as the only Hollywood person ever to be a great beauty, a great comedienne and a great actress all at once.