Onlinewsma
Absolutely Brilliant!
Intcatinfo
A Masterpiece!
Senteur
As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.
AudioFileZ
I've never seen this TV show until now and I'm in my mid-fifties. Immediately I see the formula and I'm just minutes in. It's a simple one built upon class, wealth, and crime. A lovely couple living in a Manhattan high-rise with a cute dog. It's suppose to be glamorous to the everyday viewer. The man is private eye, or was one and still solves crime. The woman is a beautiful sophisticate with a bit of a rebel spirit. The dog is not only cute but smart. Add fashionable cars and some murder mystery and you've distilled MGM's Thin Man TV show down to it's DNA.I've already read it was a too-late attempt to get anything on TV that might raise MGM's faltering movie business. Why it didn't succeed may be the thin plots because the characters are good. Still, as proved by MGM's competitor Warner Brothers it wasn't rocket science. You just had to add either a wild west backdrop or a cool local bit of color. It would seem that the local color here was as thin as the plots. Peter Lawford may be a bit too stiff for the youthful Sherlock Holmes type he's attempting to channel too. I think the combination probably was too weak to compete with the Warner Brothers offerings with far more accessible and iconic characters, even the co-stars were often huge on the WB shows. Still worth a watch as a time capsule of how TV was transitioning into a more powerful media as movies were struggling to evolve from the golden era to a modern one.Phyllis Kirk as Mrs. Charles was really great I might add. She grabs the viewer with her beauty, impeccable taste, and spunk. I think the show could have worked with a more versatile lead, better locales inserted, and just some writing that was more imaginative in the Hitchcock mode.
dzizwheel
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.
bkoganbing
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.
john-morris43
I agree with Alice. Why is no one putting out a DVD collection of this wonderful TV program? I am a devotee of the William Powell, Myrna Loy classics; this is to underscore that for me, the Peter Lawford, Phyllis Kirk re-working of "The Thin Man" requires no apologies for its contemporaneity. There were seventy-two episodes (twenty-four a season), far more than I had guessed. For those of my generation (these episodes ran during my junior high school years), there is doubtless a dear nostalgia for the time; but there is a smooth sophistication here which I am noting many much younger people are beginning to re-appreciate. The exigencies of DVD production has long made me wonder at the odd and inexplicable choices. Some awful turkeys show up both in single releases and in compilations, as fine productions are overlooked.
