Regi Allen (the inimitable Carole Lombard) is a manicurist schlubbing along, working away at people’s cuticles, and jamming away on the subway two times a day. She’s looking for a major catch to grab hold of. Ralph Bellamy is a charming man with money, albeit resigned to a wheelchair.

This could be the perfect start of a rom-com right here. However, in the year 1935, the thought of such a romantic “couple” might have been too startling for conventional Hollywood hegemony. There must be another, and he’s soon introduced.

They meet as he plays indoor hopscotch like a weirdo right outside Mr. Macklyn’s apartment. The face belongs to the most boyish-looking Fred MacMurray I have ever seen. Because again, if you’re doing the math it’s 1935; Disney professorship and My Three Sons fatherhood would be decades in the making.

For the sake of this story, it’s fortuitous he too is another affluent moneybags or at the very least his family name has enough numerals after it to suggest he is a long-time member of the “vieux riche.”

Being an unabashed gold digger, she looks to seek him out even if he is a bit on the odd side. What matters to her is the bottom line. Namely, money. Of course, the perceptive viewer might have already guessed something is amiss here somewhere. There must be a catch or a gag or a complication of some sort.

To put it bluntly, he’s as much of a high roller as she is. Because The Crash conveniently took all his family’s fortunes in its wake. He now might as well be a member of the “new poor” though he still spends money like it grows on trees. To put a positive spin on it, he is radically generous with his capital.

They have a formal dinner date with an entree of the hiccups and onion soup. And their shenanigans continue even as she begrudgingly allows her new confidante to crash on her couch.

Fred is game now because they are actually quite alike — birds of a feather you might say. He does his most uncomfortable impression of a Japanese manservant as he becomes Ms. Allen’s live-in cook trying rather unsuccessfully to whip up dinner.

Imagine my surprise when William Demarest shows up behind the door as a new suitor for Regi. Ted has a ball of a time masquerading as her demonstrative husband scaring off the hapless chap from the adjoining room. Surely neither knew they would be reunited one day on the small screen. It’s a coincidental piece of happenstance only available in hindsight.

In turn, he tells Regi he’s supposed to be in Bermuda by now with his fiancee — an heiress of a pineapple empire — so they pay her a giggly prank call long distance. The way Lombard and MacMurray warm to one another is in one sense lovely but also a bit of a disappointment.

The best sorts of screwball, are the fall apart come back together passionately type of rom-coms involving red hot tension. All the elements are here, even the romantic foils, but for whatever reason, because the characters are so charming — no fault of their own I might add — it winds up being a lightweight iteration of the genre.

It’s funny in starts and spurts but never to the point of fever pitch or raucous absurdity. It’s never really prepared to go the extra mile off the deep end beyond hopscotch, hiccups, and heat lamps. Again, it’s a minor shame, but you also can’t take away from Lombard and MacMurray.

If you’re already a fan, it’s a delightful trifle courtesy of Mitchell Leisen who’s skill with this kind of material is often underrated. For their part, the Lombard-MacMurray partnership birthed three more pictures in rapid succession to meet the public demand.

If you’re like me, you pity Ralph Bellamy as he graciously contents himself playing the matchmaker for the two lovebirds running off into the street looking for the coin they flipped. Heads means they’ll get married. Tails they go out to lunch. The giddy couple instigates a traffic jam just to find out and wouldn’t you know it, the coin stands on end in a manhole cover. Ah, love. How sweet it is.

3.5/5 Stars