Rather Than the Mysteries, the Tart and Playful Tête-à-Têtes Are the Most Notable Reason To Watch ‘The Thin Man’ Series

Written by a married couple for a fictional married couple, the dialogue in the films is as pithy as anything by Hemingway and as skillfully crafted as the best of P.G. Wodehouse’s bon-mots.

Via Wikimedia Commons
Myrna Loy, William Powell, and Asta in 'After The Thin Man' (1936). Via Wikimedia Commons

Not long ago, I listened to a podcast featuring a pair of millennial movie fans chatting as they combed through films included in the Criterion Collection. Edward F. Cline’s “The Bank Dick” (1940) came upon their radar and, suffice it to say, they were aghast. Who, they asked with the straightest of faces, was the misogynistic substance abuser at the center of the picture and why didn’t he take pride in his children? 

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