A Murder Mystery for Christmas

Though it is not necessarily a Christmas movie, the 1934 classic The Thin Man is set around Christmas time and even has some climatic moments during the Christmas holidays. The film was based on the book The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett, who based much of the relationship between comedic and loving couple Nick and Nora Charles on his own relationship with acclaimed playwright Lillian Hellman. The film went on to create Myrna Loy and William Powell as a comedic duo in the Thin Man series of six films, combining humor and mystery.

Nick Charles (William Powell) comes to New York with wife and dog Asta in tow, only to be lured back into the detective business by his sweet, funny, and curious wife Nora (Myrna Loy), the NYPD, and the case of a murderer who Nick might know. Dorothy Wymant (Maureen O'Sullivan) comes to Nick, asking him to help track down her father and Nick’s old friend, Clyde Wymant (Edward Ellis). Soon after Wymant goes missing, his girlfriend Julia Wolf (Natalie Moorhead) is murdered and Chris Jorgenson (Cesar Romero), Wymant’s ex wife Mimi’s (Minna Gombell) new husband, goes missing as well. Everyone believes that Wymant is behind the crime, except for Nick, who has a hunch. During the course of the film, Nick is attacked on Christmas Eve by gangster Joe Morelli (Edward Brophy), getting questionable info from Wymant’s lawyer MacCaulay (Porter Hall), and is surrounded by a loony cast of characters who all could have had a hand in the crime. It is up for Nick to reveal the truth at a dinner party he and his wife are throwing, with a real murder mystery as the main entertainment.

The film was originally intended to be a “B” picture, but gained so much fame it became a profitable series. The “Thin Man” in question was supposed to be Edward Ellis’s character of Wymant but so many audience members and critics assumed that Nick was the Thin Man, and so the name stuck. The films have considerably infiltrated the pop culture and the pair of Nick and Nora Charles was parodied in the 1976 mystery comedy Murder by Death, in which Dame Maggie Smith and David Niven played Dora and Dick Charleston.

The film has a large following and his become somewhat of a cult classic, if not a classic film. The Thin Man series has its own fan site and you can learn more about Nick, Norah, and the original book series here. Filmsite.org does a great review and synopsis, which can be found here. And I also have two reviews for your second or third opinion, this one from cinematical.com and this review from Roger Ebert himself from his site. If you want a good mystery for Christmas, The Thin Man is the way to go, but don’t blame me if you get addicted to Nick and Nora. Just in case you want a watch, here is the cleverly done original trailer for the film:

Unrequited Love Comes Back from the Dead

There have been several incarnations of films about Mummies and Egyptian lore, but the first one that started it all was The Mummy in 1932, staring the legendary Boris Karloff. The script was written by John L. Balderston who contributed to the scripts of Dracula and Frankenstein, and was directed by Karl Freund, the Dracula cinematographer. One of the Monster Movie elite, Karloff was Bela Lugosi's main rival for the title of Horror King after the death of Lon Chaney, Sr. The movie is also in the pantheon of great horror films that overall add to our pop culture imagery of certain horror stereotypes. I found a version the film online that you can watch here, for those of you that are interested.

The premise of the movie is that Ancient Egyptian priest Imhotep (Karloff) is accidentally revived by an archaeological expedition, lead by Sir Joseph Whemple (Arthur Byron) that uncovers his mummy. Imhotep escapes from the archaeologists and goes through Cairo, looking for the reincarnation of his long-lost lover, the Princess Ankh-hes-en-amon (Zita Johann). Imhotep was mummified alive after trying to resurrect the dead princess and when he finds her, he intends to mummify her, make her his bride, and the two of them will live forever in a sort of Corpse Bride bliss. Ten years after Whemple originally set the mummy loose on an unsuspecting Egypt, he returns with son Frank in tow (David Manners) and use the help of Ardath Bay (Karloff) to help them locate the mummy's whereabouts. Bay abducts the beautiful Helen Grosvenor (Zita Johann) and it is up to Frank and Dr. Muller (Edward Van Sloan) to uncover the mystery of the mummy and save the day.

Karloff's Mummy isn't you're average last minute Halloween costume where you wrap yourself up in a bunch of toilet paper. His mummy is actually pretty convincing as a the revived soul of an ancient Egyptian priest. Again, make up magician Jack Pierce helped Karloff create his creature's iconic costume. Cotton, collodion, and spirit gum were attached to Karloff's face and clay into his hair. The linen bandages that create the long-staying image of the Mummy were previously treated with acid and burned in an oven before being wrapped around Karloff. The make up took eight hours to apply and only two to take off. The removal of the gum was painful to Karloff and he was quoted as saying putting on and taking off the Mummy costume was "the most trying ordeal I ever endured".

The success of the first Mummy movie spawned a good dozen or so sequels and spin-offs, most b movies such as The Mummy's Hand, The Mummy's Tomb, The Mummy's Ghost, and The Mummy's Curse. Comedic duo Abbott and Costello also poked fun of The Mummy and these b-sequels in the spectacular comedy Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy. Recent versions of The Mummy have been made in the past ten years or so, little of the original scripts and characters surviving. These new Mummy movies are more action/thriller films than actual horror films, as the original The Mummy was intended to be.