A delightful, light, Depression-Era rom-com starring Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray. She's the gold-digging manicurist at a posh hotel hoping that one of her rich clients will marry her and make her a lady of leisure. That said, she certainly knows how to look a gift horse in the mouth as she can't see that her pet customer, gentlemanly, wheelchair-bound Ralph Bellamy, who we know is well-off as he's waited on hand and foot by his own butler, is obviously in love with her and is working himself up to a proposal.
Then she happens on MacMurray's recently impoverished rich boy as he nonchalantly plays hopscotch in the corridor of the hotel where she works. They both want the same thing, a free pass to a life of wealth and ease and he too has a pre-paid ticket to the top in the form of super-rich society girl Astrid Allwyn who's prepared to overlook Fred's recent come-down and marry him anyway given the lustre of his family name before the Wall Street Crash.
With snappy dialogue and neat comic interplay between the two leads, it's all winningly brought to a happy conclusion which pleasingly doesn't involve either stumbling miraculously onto easy street. This couple are literally going to have to work to make their marriage a success, a sentiment which must have chimed in well with contemporary audiences.
Miss Lombard is delightful as the upwardly mobile nail-girl to the wealthy - who knew that male-grooming wasn't just a contemporary phenomenon? MacMurray is similarly adept as the fast-talking, wise-cracking loafer who belatedly learns he has to make his own bread out in the real world, while Bellamy too makes a good impression as Lombard's lovelorn but ultimately big-hearted paraplegic suitor.
Nicely directed by genre-specialist Mitchell Leisen, I especially liked the telephone scene where Lombard sabotages MacMurray's face-saving call to his suspicious fiancée and later the bathetic, high-perspective shot from Lombard's viewpoint as she watches MacMurray leave her apartment in the early morning.
Brief as it is, this is an understated, naturally-played and warmly engaging feature. Don't be put off by the dull title, this is a polished (sorry!) and entertaining little movie well worth catching.
Then she happens on MacMurray's recently impoverished rich boy as he nonchalantly plays hopscotch in the corridor of the hotel where she works. They both want the same thing, a free pass to a life of wealth and ease and he too has a pre-paid ticket to the top in the form of super-rich society girl Astrid Allwyn who's prepared to overlook Fred's recent come-down and marry him anyway given the lustre of his family name before the Wall Street Crash.
With snappy dialogue and neat comic interplay between the two leads, it's all winningly brought to a happy conclusion which pleasingly doesn't involve either stumbling miraculously onto easy street. This couple are literally going to have to work to make their marriage a success, a sentiment which must have chimed in well with contemporary audiences.
Miss Lombard is delightful as the upwardly mobile nail-girl to the wealthy - who knew that male-grooming wasn't just a contemporary phenomenon? MacMurray is similarly adept as the fast-talking, wise-cracking loafer who belatedly learns he has to make his own bread out in the real world, while Bellamy too makes a good impression as Lombard's lovelorn but ultimately big-hearted paraplegic suitor.
Nicely directed by genre-specialist Mitchell Leisen, I especially liked the telephone scene where Lombard sabotages MacMurray's face-saving call to his suspicious fiancée and later the bathetic, high-perspective shot from Lombard's viewpoint as she watches MacMurray leave her apartment in the early morning.
Brief as it is, this is an understated, naturally-played and warmly engaging feature. Don't be put off by the dull title, this is a polished (sorry!) and entertaining little movie well worth catching.