The Thin Man

I also watched and loved this show when I was five. The dog's name was Asta. The show was based on Dashiell Hammett's novel, The Thin Man. A series of movies based on the book came out between 1934 and 1947, with William Powell and Myrna Loy.

Get TV just started running episodes of The Thin Man and at first I found I couldn't watch more than a few minutes before moving on to something else.

Eventually I got around to watch an entire episode and was fascinated. Not only are the prints crystal clear and without blemish, but the cars, clothes and guest stars are fascinating.

Then I became unable to take my eyes off spooky Phyllis Kirk with her Moe Howard bangs, crazy eyes and painted over Mommie Dearest Mouth. I remembered her from an appropriately creepy episode of The Twilight Zone'

After that came great pleasure from her reedy, yet husky voice and the wardrobe by Helen Rose.

Add in Peter Lawford and loving close-ups of both, and the thin plots and story lines become secondary.

The dialog is pretty witty for 50s TV, far better than the dumbed down lines in a great many TV shows of the 60s.

Flawed but a lot of fun. I think I'd buy the series if it ever comes to DVD to go along with another 50s favorite: Perry Mason.

The main draw of this show would be for fans of the excellent movie series. However, it suffers by comparison. Peter Lawford and Phyllis Kirk at their best couldn't hope to compete with William Powell and Myrna Loy, and I'm not sure we're getting their best in this show.

To begin with, the entertaining by-play in the dialogue between the two just isn't present in the TV show. In the movies, William Powell comes across as smart, both as a detective and in his turns of phrase. Peter Lawford only comes across as smart aleck. Myrna Loy's Nora has equally clever lines in the films, but in the TV show she is simply a pretty accessory.

The decision to format the show in 30 minutes guaranteed that the mystery plots would be "thin", the characters shallow, and every other element, most often, trite. I've never been a particular fan of Peter Lawford, and this series did not repair my opinion.

After Dear Phoebe left the air after one season, Joseph P. Kennedy was behind a second television show for his son-in-law Peter Lawford. The famous Thin Man series was adapted to a half hour television format and Lawford played Nick with Phyllis Kirk as Nora. Of course Asta was around as well. No children however for the Charles as were introduced in the six film series for MGM.

Lawford and Kirk were really up against it. William Powell had just retired and Myrna Loy was still active. People remembered the most famous screen couple ever created. Additionally and this is my own personal opinion, mysteries are no good in a half hour format, you need at least an hour to develop plot and alternative suspects.

Still The Thin Man on television was entertaining and got by on the charm of its leads.

In the early '60s before TV ad rates became astronomical and before small local stations joined large syndicated networks, the airwaves were full of old movies and TV series reruns because no one much cared about the ratings during off hours. Among the antique TV shows from the early and mid '50s that were endlessly repeated were (probably terrible) chestnuts like MY LITTLE MARGIE, OH, SUSANNAH!, PRIVATE SECRETARY, THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE, AMOS 'N' ANDY, THE LIFE OF RILEY, December BRIDE, TOPPER, I MARRIED JOAN, OUR MISS BROOKS, LOVE THAT BOB, and one that I remember especially fondly, THE THIN MAN starring Peter Lawford and Phyllis Kirk and with the sexy and incomparable Nita Talbot in a recurring role.

I remember virtually nothing about it except the impressions it left me with: Peter Lawford and Phyllis Kirk seemed dry, pleasant and sophisticated and had a nice chemistry together. I knew nothing of Powell and Loy and the original series of films at the time, so Lawford and Kirk seemed delightful. And even in childhood, I LOVED Nita Talbot, who guested on lots of other series of the period. Tall, with a model's figure and bearing, she usually wore a Veronica Lake pageboy and had a wry, slinky beauty which suggested a cross between Lauren Bacall and Anne Francis. But her voice was honking and grating and she had a N.Y. accent as thick as a slice of corned beef. The incongruity was delicious and she was wonderful.

The only plot I remember in the series was one in which it was implied that a murdered woman (I seem to remember her as a waitress) had been hacked to pieces and hidden in a trunk -- precisely the kind of grisly detail a child would remember.

While I'm willing to believe this series was awful (certainly most or all of the others I listed must have been) I'd love to see several episodes again, and I'd love to know whatever happened to Nita Talbot.