Warner Home Video, 1934, 91 minutes
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This was the first in what became one of the most popular detective serials ever. And no wonder!
I know what you're thinking: Marabou! Martinis! Myrna! And you're right - although you forgot to add the slightly sloshed debonair looks of William Powell, his eyelids at half-mast but his wit snapping in the breeze from the top of the pole. But the real reason to revel in the company of this incomparable couple is their dog, Asta, a wise and winsome Wire Fox Terrier.
The nimble Asta is first seen pulling, as if she were a sled, a package-laden Myrna Loy into a hotel bar. Indeed, he often leads his owners astray. Or at least into most every gin joint on the block. Hmmm, maybe they have something to do with that after all ...
It's not entirely necessary to follow every turn in Dashiell Hammett's plot, just so long as you follow Asta. And anyway, it's all mainly an excuse for more martinis. Mr. and Mrs. Nick Charles, a.k.a. Nick and Nora, are the most urbane sleuths (and drunks) in movie history. Asta watches the shenanigans, head cocked, from the lofty perch of the dog who is even smarter than his cleverly madcap owners.
In the end, of course, the terrier steals the show, and gets his man. It is not only the louche (one suspects this film just slipped under the Hays Production Code wire), glamourous, and frankly sexy couple who are applauded in the end. It's their little dog too.
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