Tonight's movie was another selection from the recent list of Classic Black & White Christmas Movies I discovered via Google and then ordered from the Libe : "The Thin Man" (1934), starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as the suave detective couple, Nick and Nora Charles.
"The Thin Man" is of course a very famous film, one that spawned five sequels. The original is not, strictly speaking, a Christmas movie. The story takes place at Christmastime, and the Charles' have a wreath and decorated tree in their fancy apartment in New York, but the holiday is only in the background and is never mentioned again, once the plot gets going. I'm not sure why it was included on a list of Christmas movies, but at any rate it is a classic both as a screwball comedy and as a detective story. The movie was released just as the infamous Hayes Code was starting to be enforced, and it is not as risque as the pre-Code movies I've reviewed, but there are some lines of dialogue that must have pushed the boundaries as far as the censors were concerned.
Nick and Nora are very stylish. He wears pinstriped suits; she is bedecked in the kinds of shoulder-bearing polka dot dresses and satin gowns that only the clothing designers of 1930s Hollywood could have dreamed up. They both drink Martinis to excess, but neither is ever drunk (though Powell is often a bit tipsy). But they never lose their edge, or their nose for clues. And they have a famous movie dog named Asta, a terrier who is a born detective himself.
The script was adapted from a book of the same name by popular '30s crime writer Dashiell Hammett. Nick and Nora have been retired from sleuthing for four years and are living in San Francisco. While visiting friends in New York, they are sucked back in to a case by their acquaintance with pretty Maureen O' Sullivan, a young woman whose inventor father has gone missing. The divorced father has a two-timing girlfriend who has also stolen 50 Gees from him. She is immediately suspected of doing him in.
But wait! Now the girlfriend turns up dead, and the tables are turned. Now the husband is thought to be alive and has gone from murder victim to suspected murderer, all in the span of a few dinner parties.
The action is distributed in this way, between crime scenes (the detective part of the story), and Art Deco interiors (the screwball comedy aspect, shown at endless parties).
"The Thin Man" is High Style and Fast Talking meets low brow cunning and criminal quick thinking.
The chemistry between Powell and Loy and their enormous star power elevate the story from a standard whodunit, to a genre-busting hybrid of sound stage style and sophistication, and gritty street level crime involving many of the go-to Mooks that you've seen in other '30s pictures.
I am surprised that I had never seen "The Thin Man", but then this is the year when we have been trying to catch up with unseen classics. Now I will seek out the sequels in the New Year, after the Christmas Season has passed.
I think it is very important to note the power of the original filmmakers of Hollywood, and the art form they established, the stories they told, and the styles they created via the imagery they left onscreen.
Most of all, the actors and actresses should be given the ultimate credit, for they are The Players who have enacted all of these stories that we love so much. In this way they have enriched our lives. ////
That's all I know for tonight. I love the Hollywood Stars.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxooxxo :):)
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