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 ex-pilot in a wheelchair.

Exiting his penthouse suite, she encounters a man playing hop-scotch in the hallway, and declines his invitation to join him.

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.

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.

When Regi repeatedly interrupts in a nasally voice, Ted hangs up to avoid laughing in his fiancée's hearing.

On their last night before the boat returns, they admit their mutual love, but Regi ends the relationship, insisting that Ted would resent having given up his chance to be wealthy if he were to marry her.

[1] She had originally wanted Cary Grant in the role of Theodore Drew III, but scheduling conflicts made him impossible to get.

Lombard at one point sat on MacMurray's chest, pounding on him with her fists and yelling, "Now Uncle Fred, you be funny or I'll pluck your eyebrows out!

"[1] The New York Times reviewer Andre Sennwald called it "an uproariously funny romantic comedy, with a brilliant screen play", with "some of the best dialogue that has come out of Hollywood in many months".