Are there detectives anywhere in pop culture more fun than Nick and Nora Charles? Oh, Inspector Clouseau may be amusing, but you'd never want to have dinner at his house: at best, he'd spill the soup in your lap. At the Charles house, Nora would serve you cocktails while wearing a lulu of a dress, while Nick would entertain you while unmasking a killer. There might be gunshots, but you'd probably never be in danger. What better way to spend an evening?

"The Thin Man" was the last novel written by Dashiell Hammett, who also wrote "The Maltese Falcon." It came out in January 1934; with remarkable efficiency, a movie starring William Powell and the divine Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora was also out in 1934.

Here, in the first of five "Thin Man" sequels, Nick and Nora Charles are on their way back to the West Coast after solving a murder in New York with the help of many martinis and their wire-haired terrier Asta (who was a schnauzer in the books). Nick is a retired detective who'd come back into the game to help solve the disappearance of the titular thin man, and Nora is his witty, very game, socialite wife. (In the first movie he knocks her out to protect her from gunfire, and she revives irate, yelling, "I knew you'd take him, but I wanted to see you do it!")

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