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The Thin Man
The Thin Man Movies
From 1934 to 1947
Based on a novel by Dashiell Hammett
"My friends have stood by me marvelously in the ups and downs of my career. I don't believe there is anything more worthwhile in life than friendship. Friendship is a far better thing than love, as it is commonly accepted." William Powell
The Thin Man (1934) is a detective novel by Dashiell Hammett, originally published in Redbook. Although he never wrote a sequel, the book became the basis for a successful six-part film series which also began in 1934 with The Thin Man and starred William Powell and Myrna Loy. A Thin Man television series followed in the 1950s.
An early draft of the story, written several years before the published version, and now in print in several collections of Hammett's work, does not mention the main characters of the novel, Nick and Nora Charles, and ends after ten chapters. It is about a quarter of the length of the finished book.
The Thin Man was Hammett's last novel. Lillian Hellman, in an introduction to a compilation of Hammett's five novels, contemplated on several explanations for Hammett's retirement as a novelist:
"I have been asked many times over the years why he did not write another novel after The Thin Man. I do not know. I think, but I only think, I know a few of the reasons: he wanted to do a new kind of work; he was sick for many of those years and getting sicker. But he kept his work, and his plans for work, in angry privacy and even I would not have been answered if I had ever asked, and maybe because I never asked is why I was with him until the last day of his life."
In 2002, critic Roger Ebert added the film to his list of Great Movies. Ebert praises William Powell's performance in particular, stating that Powell "is to dialogue as Fred Astaire is to dance. His delivery is so droll and insinuating, so knowing and innocent at the same time, that it hardly matters what he's saying."
In 1997, the film was added to the United States National Film Registry having been deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." In 2000 American Film Institute acknowledged the film as one of the great comedies in the previous hundred years of cinema.
The trailer contained specially filmed footage in which Nick Charles (William Powell) is seen on the cover of the Dashiell Hammett novel The Thin Man. Nick Charles then steps out of the cover to talk to fellow detective Philo Vance (also played by Powell) about his latest case.
Charles mentions he hasn't seen Vance since The Kennel Murder Case, a film in which Powell played Vance. The Kennel Murder Case was released in October 1933, just seven months prior to the release of The Thin Man.
Nick goes on to explain to Vance that his latest case revolves around a "tall, thin man" (referring to Clyde Wynant), just before clips of the film are shown.
The Thin Man was dramatized as a radio play on the June 8, 1936 broadcast of Lux Radio Theater, with William Powell and Myrna Loy reprising their film roles.
In May 2011, it was reported that Johnny Depp will star in a remake of the film, directed by Rob Marshall.
In the 1976 comedy spoof movie Murder by Death, the characters of Nick and Nora Charles became Dick and Dora Charleston, played by David Niven and Maggie Smith. The 1979-1984 ABC television weekly romantic detective series Hart To Hart also mimicked the central conceit. It starred Robert Wagner, Stefanie Powers and Lionel Stander. In the 2005 animated film Hoodwinked!, the character Nicky Flippers, a frog detective voiced by David Ogden Stiers, was based on Nick Charles.
More than 150,000 feet (28+ miles) of film was used by David O. Selznick just to film the screen tests of potential actresses for the lead role of Scarlett O'Hara in his 1939 epic "Gone With the Wind".
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