Funny, clever, snarky. And complicated mysteries at the heart of both these screenplays. RETURN OF THE THIN MAN and ANOTHER THIN MAN. I was hoping to count them as two books, but they are not.In RETURN, Nick and Nora return to San Francisco and get embroiled in a family mystery. It's so funny how much Nora's proper family hate Nick, but they turn to him when they get into trouble. The screenplay has actors performing the lines, and a narrator reading all the stage directions. They are as clever as the narration...I didn't guess the killer, but I had a lot of fun with the characters.ANOTHER THIN MAN...Nick and Nora and baby...a very lumpy, uninteresting baby...more of a sack of potatoes. His word for things he doesn't like is "Drunk" and his word for things he likes is "Gimmee." I started to get into the swing of Nick's modus operandi...and guess, about half way through, who the killer was...We are back in New York and Long Island, and Nick is trying to figure out how to take care of Nora's money. Instead, he's right in the middle of another mystery. There was Hammett's 'treatment' for a third sequel...bringing back some of the characters from previous stories...it sounded great...and Hammett may have signalled his fatigue with the couple by hinting that perhaps Nick is the murderer.I must admit, after four THIN MAN stories in a row, I'm a little tired of them, too. I cannot remember how long ago I first saw the Thin Man movies. Many years after I finally read the book by Dashiell Hammett and enjoyed that and therefore loved the movies even more. This book furnishes background information and ideas with feelings of the writer and collaborators regarding the two sequels. I could just picture William Powell and Myrna Loy speaking that wonderful dialogue! The "headnote" at the end presenting the 8 page story for a sequel was not developed or used and for that we can all be profoundly grateful.
What do You think about Return Of The Thin Man (2013)?
I didn't realize that it was basically the poorly edited scripts for some of his movies. :(
—Nay
I really liked Dashiell Hammett versions of the screenplays. Nick and Nora are very funny.
—lah10
