Trailer Tuesday: Marty & The Thin Man

There are no new trailers that I'm excited about. A lot of horror out there right now, which is generally not for me. I hardly make it to the theater these days anyway. But I have been watching loads of old films that I will heartily recommend. The list is getting long, so today I'll focus on just two.

First is Marty (1955) starring Ernest Borgnine. Marty is a thirty-something butcher who is kind, loyal, and steady as a rock, but acutely feels alone. His mood and basis of Marty's life is pretty much summed up in this quote: "Ma, sooner or later, there comes a point in a man's life when he's gotta face some facts. And one fact I gotta face is that, whatever it is that women like, I ain't got it." It is  surprisingly still a socially relevant film that is both heartbreaking and heartwarming. Marty won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and best picture at the Academy Awards as well as best actor, best, actress, and best adapted screenplay.

Myrna Loy and William Powell have the spotlight in The Thin Man (1934), adapted from a novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett. Hammett is probably best known for creating Sam Spade, the hard-boiled detective famously played by Humphrey Bogart in an adaptation of Hammett's The Maltese Falcon. While The Thin Man also includes a hard-boiled detective named Nick Charles, Nick has more than his fair share of a sense of humor. So instead of being film noir, The Thin Man is more film gris et rose with a great balance of violence, murder, and belly laughs. I particularly enjoy the relationship between Nick and his wife, Nora. (P.S. I just finished the book and it's also swell, but even more scandalous.)