Third Finger, Left Hand

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.