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Monday, December 4, 2017

December Film Club

Hey everybody!

I can't believe it's already December, this year has flown by!  Hopefully the snow and deathly cold will hold off for a while and we'll have another mild winter, but, we shall see.

Let me start by thanking everyone who was able to make it out for Hacksaw Ridge, we had a good turnout, great food, and some compelling conversations afterwards.  You guys continually make my job fun!

On to business.  For the month of December, I've decided on another non-traditional Christmas film, that is, a film that occurs during the Christmas season but isn't actually a "Christmas movie".  For this year, I've decided on another of my favorite films: The Thin Man.

The Thin Man is a 1934 American Pre-Code comedy mystery film directed by W.S. Van Dyke and based on the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett.  The film stars William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles; Nick is a hard drinking, retired private detective, and Nora is a wealthy heiress.  Their wire-haired fox terrier Asta is played by canine actor Skippy.  The film's screenplay was written by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich, a married couple.  In 1934, the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The film has a 97% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Roger Ebert gave it 4/4 stars, adding it to his list of Great Movies.  He said this in his review, "William 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.  That's certainly the case in The Thin Man, a murder mystery in which the murder and the mystery are insignificant compared to the personal styles of the actors.  Powell and Myrna Loy co-star as Nick and Nora Charles, a retired detective and his rich wife, playfully in love and both always a little drunk.  Powell plays the character with a lyrical alcoholic slur that waxes and wanes but never topples either way into inebriation or sobriety.  The drinks are the lubricant for dialogue of elegant wit and wicked timing, used by a character who is decadent on the surface but fundamentally brave and brilliant.  The Thin Man was one of the most popular films of 1934, inspired five sequels, and was nominated for four Oscars (best picture, actor, direction and screenplay).  The movie is based on a novel by Dashiell Hammett, one of the fathers of noir, and it does technically provide clues, suspects and a solution to a series of murders, but in tone and intent, it's more like an all-dialogue version of an Astaire and Rogers musical, with elegant people in luxury hotel penthouses and no hint of the depression anywhere in sight."

We will be meeting Thursday, Dec. 21st at 6:15pm.  I hope you can join us for this wonderful film!

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqpO6mx8WCE