- It's The Thin Man drinking game! Raise a toast* to Nick and Nora Charles every time:
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- --Nick jokes that he's through being a detective.
- --Nora playfully encourages Nick to take the case.
- --Nora gets dragged along by the dog, Asta.
- --Nick steals somebody else's drink.
- --Asta hides under something or delivers a reaction shot.
- --The doctor's slender build is mentioned.
- --A scrunched-up face is made.
- --You laugh out loud.
- I'm afraid that the last item would have lost the game for me. I find The Thin Man absolutely hysterical, and I laughed aloud several times while watching it, despite having seen the film before. William Powell and Myrna Loy are completely wonderful as Nick and Nora Charles, and their performances are easily the most essential ingredient in the film's success. In fact, Powell and Loy are so memorably amusing that I find it impossible to imagine that the film could have starred anyone else. In my mind, they are forever Nick and Nora, and I think the existence of four sequels supports this claim. That said, the writers also deserve a lot of credit for penning lines like "He didn't come anywhere near my tabloids" or "What's that man doing in my drawers?" Maybe it's not high comedy, but it's the only writing I've encountered from that era that is anywhere near as funny as that of the Marx Brothers. Although The Thin Man is adapted from the Dashiell Hammett novel, I don't recall the book being half as playful or witty as the film.
- You may have noticed that the plot really isn't an important part of the drinking game. It's not an important part of the movie either, except insofar as it gives Nick and Nora (and Asta) a chance to be onscreen. Basically, the happy couple spend most of their time merrily cavorting while accidentally (and sometimes literally) stumbling through solving a missing person case. While this has the effect of putting Nick "way behind on his drinking," it also gives them both the chance to interact with lots of eccentric characters, none of whom manage to be nearly as charming as the Charles family themselves. There's no point in trying to summarize all of the humor in this film, so I'll instead mention only my favorite scene: Christmas morning with two hangovers, one BB Gun, and lots of balloons. Enjoy!
- *root beer allowed
- Caesar Romero of course played The Joker in the Batman TV show, but Maureen O'Sullivan played Jane in the Tarzan movies.
- The plot is enough of a potboiler that the film lands on a different guilty party than the book, but nobody really cares.
- Odd that the sequels retained The Thin Man title.
