Hands Across the Table
| Hands Across the Table | |
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Trade advertisement
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| Directed by | Mitchell Leisen |
| Produced by | E. Lloyd Sheldon |
| Screenplay by | Norman Krasna |
| Story by | Viña Delmar |
| Starring | |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Hands Across the Table is a 1935 American romantic screwball comedy film directed by Mitchell Leisen and released by Paramount Pictures. It stars Carole Lombard as a manicurist looking for a rich husband and Fred MacMurray as a poor playboy, with Ralph Bellamy as a wealthy but handicapped ex-pilot. The teaming of Lombard and MacMurray was so well received, they went on to make three more films together, 1936's The Princess Comes Across, 1937's Swing High, Swing Low, and 1937's True Confession.
Brought up in poverty, hotel manicurist Regi Allen wants to marry a rich husband. Her new client, wheelchair-using hotel guest Allen Macklyn is immediately attracted to her and becomes her confidant. Despite his obvious wealth, Regi does not view him as a potential husband, and has no qualms about telling him about her goal in life.
Exiting his penthouse suite, she encounters a man playing hop-scotch in the hallway, and declines his invitation to join him. He makes an appointment for a manicure as Theodore Drew III, scion of a socially prominent family. Unaware that the Drews were bankrupted by the Great Depression, she accepts his invitation to dinner.
They have a good time, but Ted drinks too much and tells Regi that he is engaged to Vivian Snowden, heiress to a pineapple fortune. When Regi is unable to wake him from his drunken slumber, she lets him sleep on her sofa. He explains to her that he was supposed to sail to Bermuda last night (a trip paid for by his future father-in-law) and that he has nowhere to stay and no money. Regi reluctantly lets him live in her apartment until his boat returns from Bermuda, at which time he can return to sponging off of Vivian. Ted and Regi confess to each other that they intend to marry for money.
Ted and Regi play fun pranks on each other. In the first one, Ted frightens away Regi's date by pretending to be her abusive husband. Later, in order to convince Vivian that he is in Bermuda, Ted persuades Regi to telephone Vivian while posing as a Bermuda telephone operator. When Regi repeatedly interrupts in a nasally voice, Ted hangs up to avoid laughing in his fiancee's hearing. However, this backfires, as Vivian discovers that the call came from New York when she tries to reconnect. She hires private investigators to find out what is going on.
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