Third Finger, Left Hand (1940)

Myrna Loy: Margot Sherwood Merrick

Photos 

Quotes 

• Philip Booth : Very romantic

  Margot Sherwood Merrick : Madly romantic. It was raining. Spring rain turning the pavement blue. I adore rain.

  Philip Booth : I detest it. It gives me head colds. Furthermore, if it was so romantic, why did you leave him?

  Margot Sherwood Merrick : It stopped raining.

• Mr. Flandrin : Pleeeease! You're casting a shadow.

  Margot Sherwood Merrick : Practically everybody does.

• Philip Booth : You can't go on being tied to a husband who doesn't even care enough to want to see you.

  Margot Sherwood Merrick : Oh, but he does, I'm sure of it.

  Philip Booth : Well, he sure has a funny way of showing it. Never seeing you all year. Wandering around foreign countries.

• Philip Booth : I can't understand it. How could you marry a man that none of us has ever seen? That you didn't even know anything about? That nobody ever heard of? Just like that - boom! And you're Mrs. Tony Merrick.

  Margot Sherwood Merrick : I don't understand myself some times. But there I was, alone, in Rio, in April.

• Margot Sherwood Merrick : I don't know why it is, but the wolfpack seems to think that a woman in business is fair game.

  Beth Hampshire : They do if you're single. But the minute they see that Mrs. in front of your name, their attitude's different.

  Margot Sherwood Merrick : You oughtta join the lodge. Then you'll be able to wear the emblem on the third finger of the left hand.

• August Winkel : I guess I worry for nothing, but I'm not good as a liar. Even my children would never believe me when I dressed up as Santa Claus.

  Margot Sherwood Merrick : Well, you just haven't got the build for Santa Claus.

  August Winkel : Why not?

• Margot Sherwood Merrick : I like this job, Gussie. And that "Mrs." in front of my name is job insurance.

• Margot Sherwood Merrick : Well, nice little place you have here.

  Mr. Flandrin : Nice LITTLE place? Madam, I'll have you know, my resources are unlimited. Unlimited.

• Margot Sherwood Merrick : Mr. Thompson, we will give you a $3,000 advance.

  Mr. Flandrin : Chicken feed - $3,500!

• Margot Sherwood Merrick : Only 10 percent, Mr. Flandrin? Now you're being unethical.

  Mr. Flandrin : Young woman, I can be just as unethical as you can.

• Margot Sherwood Merrick : Don't you realize that people would rather have a portrait of a beautiful woman in their living room than something called "Dawn on Rat-Nose Gulch?'"

  Jeff Thompson : Ha, ha, ha. No, but I'll stick to the outdoors stuff.

  Margot Sherwood Merrick : Why?

  Jeff Thompson : Because, when I paint an Ohio cow, I'm the only one that has to like it. But if I painted a society cow, then she'd have to like it.

• Jeff Thompson : Margot?

  Margot Sherwood Merrick : Yes, Jeff.

  Jeff Thompson : Tell me something. Do you like houseboats?

• Waiter : What do you wish, madam?

  Margot Sherwood Merrick : I'll have a chicken sandwich on toast without the bread.

  Waiter : I beg your pardon?

  Margot Sherwood Merrick : Oh, just make it a rye sandwich on white bread and not the chicken.

  Waiter : Without the...

  Jeff Thompson : Never mind - just bring it. We're in a hurry to get out of here.

• Margot Sherwood Merrick : Well, anyone's liable to get mixed up when a person is acting deliberately stupid and suspicious. You can take me home if you don't mind.

• Jeff Thompson : If you met him in Rio, and if you had dinner with him that night, and if you drove to Las Palmas to get married that same night, you must have driven awful fast.

  Margot Sherwood Merrick : Trying to give me the third degree?

  Jeff Thompson : Because it's 900 miles from Rio to Las Palmas.

• Margot Sherwood Merrick : What right have you to question me as if I was a criminal or something?

• Margot Sherwood Merrick : You've got to get out of here. What am I going to tell 'em?

  Jeff Thompson : Tell 'em it was spring. Tell 'em it was blossom time. Tell 'em it was Rio. Or just tell 'em you had a lapse of memory. So many ways to handle this if you just put your mind to it.

• Jeff Thompson : Tell the folks your idea for doing my den, angel.

  Margot Sherwood Merrick : Well, uh, I want to do it very simply. Uh, just a short flight of steps and a gallows. That's the theme. It's going to be very modernistic

  Jeff Thompson : She has the most unconventional ideas.

• Mr. Sherwood : [as the last dinner guest leaves]  Such a lively woman.

  Jeff Thompson : Yeah. So interested in other people's lives.

  Margot Sherwood Merrick : And with nine of her own to live.

• Margot Sherwood Merrick : What do you think you're doing?

  Jeff Thompson : Very interesting process known as man taking off shoes, putting on slippers.

• Jeff Thompson : You know, sometimes you almost make a noise like you were thinking.

  Margot Sherwood Merrick : Oh, you're so smart, aren't you?

• Jeff Thompson : Now listen to me, cutie pie. You can't go around getting divorces the way you buy hats.

  Margot Sherwood Merrick : Oh, can't I?

  Jeff Thompson : No! Not unless you're married. That's the law. So you might just as well forget it.

• Jeff Thompson : When you do get married, you certainly won't need any practice hen-pecking.

  Margot Sherwood Merrick : I'm not hen-pecking.

  Jeff Thompson : Listen, my Aunt Edith killed my Uncle John hen-pecking. I oughtta know a hen-pecker when I hear one.

• Judge Holman : Jeff ought to remember me. He was in my Sunday school class.

  Mr. Kelland : We're here for the convention. What are you doing here, Jeff?

  Margot Sherwood Merrick : [Muscles her way between the judge and Jeff, and speaks in street lingo]  Whadda ya think we're doin' in Niagara Falls - huntin' woims?