"Shadow Of The Thin Man" + Bearss + Church

Tonight I watched "Shadow Of The Thin Man"(1941), the fourth in the series and the fourth I've seen this month. "Shadow" might've been my favorite so far. William Powell just gets better and better each time out, and in this one there are some great gags, including a scene at a carnival where he is assaulted by a bunch of geeky kids on a merry-go-round, and also a free-for-all brawl at a restaurant, started by Asta the Dog. Asta gets in his usual amount of screentime, and as always he has his portable fire hydrant that Nick and Nora take with them to whatever hotel they happen to be staying in. This time they are back in San Francisco, their home. The plot has to do with the murder of a small-time hoodlum who is blackmailing the girlfriend of a crime boss. The boss fixes the local horse races, his girl skims off of the profits, the hoodlum knows this and threatens to tell........unless she gives him 8 Gees, just enough to pay off his own debt to the mobsters.

William Powell loves the horses, too, and in fact he seems to have a winning scam of his own, haha. He can be found at the track, martini in hand. The last thing he wants to do, as in every Thin Man movie, is to come out of retirement to solve a murder for the bumbling cops. But he always does unretire, due to pressure from his wife Myrna Loy, who  craves exciting detective work as much as Powell wants to avoid it.

Every movie in the franchise follows a "whodunit" formula that ends with Powell gathering the suspects in a room at the end of the films, and grilling each one until he singles out the culprit, whose identity he knows beforehand. The formula works and the endings are fun because you can make your own guess as to who the killer is (I am two for four), but the real draw of the "Thin Man" movies is the tipsy suaveness of Powell, the aristocratic bemusement of his wife Myrna Loy, the star treatment of super dog Asta, and the down to earth quality they all possess. No snobs are these, though they have to deal with same in every movie, as well as with assorted Crumb Bums, Goons, Mooks & Weasels. The '30s and early '40s were full of such characters. "Squealers" would come later, when Film Noir rolled around in the late '40s, and I only added that characterization because I find the idea of "Squealers" to be hilarious in this context. I love the crimespeak terminology of the era. :)

As usual, I give Two Big Thumbs Up for "Shadow Of The Thin Man". The whole series is recommended as a prime example of what made Golden Era movies so great. I have two more "Thin Man" movies left to watch, one is on order and will be viewed within a week or so, and I am contemplating ordering the "Philo Vance" detective mysteries, earlier films that starred a pre-"Thin Man" William Powell, one of the greatest movie stars there ever was.  /////

In football news, the Rams won, and will have a week off while the wildcard teams play next week. Their most likely opponent in the divisional round seems to be Da Bearss......

Cue SNL, Chris Farley and Mike Myers : "Bearss, Bearss, Bearss, Bearss".......(Ditka).

I think that Da Bearss will be toast in the sunny Colosseum, if it comes to that, though I only wrote about all of this so I could mention "Bearss, Bearss, Bearss, Bearss"........(Ditka).

Rams win, end of story. /////

This morn we had good singing in church, for the final Sunday of the year. I was the only male choir member in attendance, but I think I held down the fort behind our front row of female sopranos and altos. Can't wait to sing more and more in the new year.

See you tomorrow night in Times Square.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)