The Thin Man (W.S. Van Dyke, 1934) B+ (x2)

While watching The Thin Man again the other night, I had forgotten just how odd of an hybrid this film really is. It's not often you see screwball comedy mixed with a Dashiell Hamett murder mystery- and it's even rarer that you find the two working so well together. William Powell and Myrna Loy, as the witty, urbane and ever so slightly intoxicated Nick and Nora Charles, have perfect chemistry together and are so perfect in their roles that you forget that they hardly appear for the first half hour (almost becoming supporting players in their own story). In lesser hands, I feel the comedy probably would have fallen flat and made this another run-of-the-mill detective story. The Thin Man isn't perfect- there are too many characters to keep track of and most of the performances aside from Powell and Loy are yawn-worthy- but it's still one hell of an enjoyable time.