Recasting Nick Charles

Last week Thompson on Hollywood ran a non-story on Johnny Depp’s planned Thin Man remake. You might remember that I blogged about the potential for such a project last year. The only bit of new information that’s emerged since then isn’t exactly encouraging. It’s a given that the screenplay for this film needs to be urbane and sophisticated, right? The first three Thin Man movies were written by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, after all.

Well, Johnny Depp and Rob Marshall have entrusted the project to… Jerry Stahl.

Author of Bad Boys II.

Oh dear.

The more I think about this, the more this film seems doomed. Wrong scriptwriter, wrong director and worst of all, wrong leading man. I’ll admit it, I’ve never been a Johnny Depp fan. For me, he’s one of those actors who’s all surface, rarely letting us in – always playing funny rather than being funny.

In my opinion, there’s only one actor working at the moment who might be able to match William Powell:

John Slattery

Think about it. He looks good in a suit, he drinks and smokes gracefully, he’s just the right age and he’s a ringer for Dashiell Hammett. Put a ‘tache on him and you’re in business.

Of course, the real sign that Depp and Marshall’s remake is in trouble is the lack of any credible Nora. Film stars just don’t look like Myrna Loy any more, and they rarely have the same knack for comedy. Can anyone think of  “a lanky brunette with a wicked jaw” who might fit the bill? No, I didn’t think so.

They Had Faces Then #4

Yvette has reminded me that Clark Gable was born on 1st February in 1901.

I don’t know how I’ve managed to miss it but I’ve never seen his most famous picture, Gone with the Wind. However, I do cherish his performance as Peter Warne in It Happened One Night. To me, it’s one of the great comic performances of the 1930s, in one of that era’s most delightful films. Just thinking about his rules of hitch-hiking makes me smile!

Myrna Loy, who acted with Gable several times (and rejected his advances a number of times too!), recalled, “He loved poetry, and read beautifully, with great sensitivity, but he wouldn’t dare let anybody else know it.”

Loy and Gable made a great screen pairing, especially in Manhattan Melodrama, Test Pilot and Wife vs. Secretary (how I relish the name of that movie!).

Loy, Gable and Jean Harlow in Wife vs. Secretary (Clarence Brown, 1936)

They Had Faces Then #1

New Year, new feature! Since I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time googling for images of old Hollywood film stars, I’ve decided to create an ongoing gallery of the best that I find. I expect this’ll mainly be photographs, but I thought I’d start with a cigarette card depicting the lovely Myrna Loy, which is currently tacked to the corner of my monitor.

FILM STARS, A Series of 50, Described by FLORENCE DESMOND.

No.2 Myrna Loy (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

Myrna Loy spent the first years of her career trying to convince the studios that there were other parts she could play besides Oriental vamps, for which she was continually being cast. Perhaps her most successful part was opposite William Powell in “The Thin Man.” When I met her in Hollywood, I hardly recognised her, she is so entirely different off the screen. She is freckled, has auburn curly hair and uses no make-up at all. She is very quiet, reads a good deal and studies music, but never goes to parties.

CARRERAS LTD (Estd. 1788) Arcadia Works, London, England.

KEEP THIS ATTRACTIVE SERIES OF ART PICTURES IN THE CARRERAS SLIP-IN ALBUM OBTAINABLE FROM ALL TOBACCONISTS (PRICE ONE PENNY)

Dead as Dillinger

“They [MGM] put me right to work in Manhattan Melodrama, which precipitated the demise of John Dillinger, Public Enemy No. 1. FBI agents shot him down outside the Biograph Theatre, in Chicago, after he’d seen the film. Supposedly a Myrna Loy fan, he broke cover to see me. Personally, I suspect the theme of the picture rather than my fatal charms attracted him, but I’ve always felt a bit guilty about it, anyway. They filled him full of holes, poor soul.”

- Being and Becoming (1987), Myrna Loy & James Kotsilibas-Davis, p. 87.

[photograph via If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger]

Johnny Depp and The Thin Man

Over the course of my PhD, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and writing about MGM’s six Thin Man films. I’ve even crossed the Atlantic to speak about them. In the UK at least, these movies have faded from popular memory. As a result, I’ve explained the series’ premise in casual conversation countless times. “They’re films about a married couple who solve mysteries,” is my usual line of patter, followed by, “Based on a Dashiell Hammett novel. The guy who wrote Maltese Falcon?”

This week several sources reported Johnny Depp is now developing a remake. I suppose that means I won’t need to do any more explaining…

The poster that hangs in my living room.

Depp wants Rob Marshall to direct, with whom he is currently working on Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and possible screenwriters are Terry Rossio, Jerry Stahl and Christopher McQuarrie. Depp has been quoted as saying, “The Thin Man has long been a favourite of mine and with Rob at the helm, I know we’re in great hands.”

There’s no news yet as to who’ll be playing Nora to Depp’s Nick (or who’s been cast as Asta). It’ll have to be a pretty sensational teaming to stand up to comparison with William Powell and Myrna Loy, the greatest of screen couples.

"He didn't come anywhere near my tabloids."

Most intriguing of all is the suggestion that this new adaptation will combine the plots of the first two MGM films, The Thin Man (1934) and After the Thin Man (1936). This got me wondering how Depp’s version will acknowledge the Powell and Loy films. After all, one of Depp’s most recent projects was Public Enemies (2009), which ended with the death of Dillinger outside a screening of Manhattan Melodrama (1934), the first Powell-Loy movie. Some reports suggest that Rob Marshall, who also directed Chicago (2002), is planning some musical numbers for the new film, which were a feature of the original series.

I think there is some potential in reviving Hammett’s Nick and Nora (who were somewhat harder-edged than Powell and Loy’s interpretation of the characters) and I’ll be interested to see how the film positions itself as a period piece.

What do you think? Is Depp good casting? Do we need another Thin Man?

Gumshoe trails #4

“Darling, you don’t need mystery. You’ve got something much better, something more alluring.” “What?” “Me!”

After the Thin Man (1936)

Gumshoe trails #3

This week I’ve picked one of the all-time odd trailers, for The Thin Man (1934, W.S. Van Dyke). There were six Thin Man films in all, starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as the crime-solving couple Nick and Nora Charles. I’ve spent a good part of the last three years writing about these movies, but they still charm and delight me. Powell had previously played the snooty detective Philo Vance in a series of films, and that fact structures this trailer.

Camera trickery allows Powell as Vance to chat with Powell as Nick Charles. Oh, and did I mention that Nick is standing in a giant-sized book when the trailer starts? It’s a nod to the cover image of Dashiell Hammett’s novel, which pictured the author as its hero.

Hammett posing as Nick Charles

Even with this knowledge, that massive prop book is fabulously barmy! As I’ve said before (and will no doubt say again), I wish trailers were still like this! Going to the cinema would be so much more fun…

Trivia fiends: Chris Jorgenson is played by Cesar Romero, some thirty years before he played The Joker.