Third Finger, Left Hand

Melvyn Douglas and Myrna Loy are both excellent in their roles as a couple who are fake-married. Her character made up a fictional long-distance husband for work, and his pranks her by showing up as as that husband.

It's not Tolstoy but it's a lovely little comedy with excellent performances. I used to be surprised to see Melvyn Douglas in leading-man romantic roles. But while he may not be conventionally handsome by modern standards, he makes up for that in charm and wit, not to mention excellent comic timing.

One reviewer said that it was silly to think that a single female executive needed a pretend marriage unless she was a closeted lesbian. But you that you can't judge the premise of a 1940 film by 21st century standards. The Production Code would not have allowed a film to have a lesbian character unless that she was doomed to some sort of awful end as comeuppance for her supposed "deviancy". The studios followed those rules back then. To see why a single woman might wish to feign being romantically unavailable at the workplace 'back in the day', view Mad Men. It will give you some perspective.

This is an engaging and enjoyable comedy with good performances not only from the leads but from the supporting actors as well.

Myrna Loy wears a wedding ring on her "Third Finger, Left Hand" in this 1940 comedy, but she's not married. As Margot, the editor of a popular womens magazine, she tells everyone she's married to a guy named Tony. Why? Because every other woman who's had the job has lost it because of the publisher's wife. He's got a roving eye. Meanwhile, Philip Booth (Lee Bowman) wants to marry her, but she just can't seem to find Tony to get a divorce.

Then Margot meets Jeff Thompson (Melvyn Douglas), an artist who figures out that there's no Tony. So he shows up at her house and announces that he is Tony. Now she's in a pickle, and she can't divorce him without marrying him first.

This is a cute comedy, nothing special, with good acting by the always reliable Loy and Douglas. As he sailed through all these supporting roles, Douglas was hiding a serious, incredible dramatic talent. Fortunately, once he was older and there was no studio to cast him as the other man, he was able to show it.

One interesting thing about this film is the role of the train porter Sam, played by Ernest Whitman, who is pulled into service by Jeff to delay the settlement negotiations en route to Reno. Sam is your typical train porter of those days until he tells Jeff that he's taken law correspondence courses. He then recites law to Philip and Margot and delays the divorce. Very unusual for those days, as is the wonderful character of Oliver Cromwell Jones in "Crash Dive" who is one of the soldiers on the submarine. These good roles for African Americans were few and far between back then.

The story is fun even if predictable, but I have to wonder, what was Jeff Thompson (Melvyn Douglas) thinking? But I'll get back to that.

Margot Sherwood (Myrna Loy) is the editor of a magazine who has a fictitious husband - Tony Merrick - so that she won't get hit on by all of the men who work for the magazine back at a time when smoking and sexual harassment were acceptable in the workplace. It works, but then along comes somebody - artist Jeff Thompson (Melvyn Douglas) - that she would like to see romantically, so she goes out on the town without telling Jeff about the husband. Unfortunately, a drunken would be suitor is also out on the town too and mentions said husband. Jeff is shocked, and Margot explains it was an impulsive never consummated marriage that she intends to end in divorce, but that she cannot find Tony and he is in Argentina somewhere. Jeff uses his journalist contacts in Argentina - funny thing for an artist to have - and discovers there is no husband.

And that is why I ask, what was Jeff thinking when he barges into Margot's home and claims to be said husband? Her dad calls the press, because Margot's family is a prominent one it ends up in the newspapers, and he introduces himself to all of her friends. This could end several ways - For sure Margot is going to cool to him for doing this, maybe she might even announce he is a fraud - there is just no easy out. She does have a bit of fun at his expense when they run into his friends from Ohio and she does her best Jean Harlow as Jeff's saucy hard boiled wife, shocking the small town Ohioans.

So all of this is why Jeff is awful. Margot is awful because, to get out of this predicament legally, she convinces an attorney friend of hers that she is in love with him and would marry him if free of the pretend Mr. Merrick AKA Jeff, and to accomplish this she needs his talents as an attorney. The actors are what make this film, but it is really hard to look at them as nice people after all of the using that both leads do in service of the plot.

One thing nice about the old studio system - MGM had a deep bench of contract players in 1940, not the least of which is Felix Bressart and his homely puss, dishing out homespun compassionate advice in a great supporting role. Also possibly the earliest American film with an African American attorney as a plot device.

While this comedy is about the romantic complications facing a woman executive and the artist who loves her, "Third Finger, Left Hand" provides a rarely seen dignified Black role. When first we see Sam (portrayed by veteran African American actor, Ernest Whitman) he is a train porter speaking in an 'uneducated' manner - employing the type of language structure used by script writers of the time to reinforce negative racial stereotypes. Later, however, a Sam is revealed to have taken college correspondence courses for years and to be someone quite knowledgeable in matters of Law: able to quote court rulings and present effective legal arguments on behalf of his client, the artist. Ultimately, Sam is the hero of "Third Finger, Left Hand", making it possible for the protagonists' love to triumph.

I suppose by 1940 the public and the critics just were used to seeing Myrna Loy with William Powell. At least that's what it said in the Citadel Film series book on Myrna Loy's films. In any event I think that the public and the critics gave short shrift to this film that had her co-starring with Melvyn Douglas. They have some funny moments together.

Third Finger Left Hand has Myrna Loy as a successful career woman a type that Katharine Hepburn and Rosalind Russell essayed in their sleep. It's curious because today this would be unthinkable, but to guard against both jealous wives and horny men both married and single, Myrna keeps a wedding ring in the proper place as the title indicates. It works maybe all too well as there are no men in her life nor prospects of same.

That doesn't deter free spirit itinerant painter Melvyn Douglas who in a hail mary type move pretends to be the husband she pretends she has. That makes it all real hard to explain to her family like her father Raymond Walburn, sister Bonita Granville, and young attorney Lee Bowman who would like to be the man in her life.

There are two really funny moments the first belongs to Myrna who when at Niagara Falls Douglas runs into some straight laced folks from his small Ohio hometown, Myrna turns the tables on him and with her impression of a gun moll really mortifies those poor people.

The second is when on a train Douglas drafts a Pullman porter played by Ernest Whitman as an attorney. Whitman actually has studied law and goes head to head with Lee Bowman and it's a draw.

Despite only so-so reviews Third Finger Left Hand is a real comedy gem and a great film credit for its stars.