The sequel...

is never as good as the original. (sigh)

"After the Thin Man" was good. It's never a waste of time to watch William Powell and Myrna Loy for an hour and a half. But the sequel to "The Thin Man" was longer on action and shorter on funny dialogue, and I missed the quips and banter. Maybe I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't watched them back-to-back, but I did feel that the first one was the better of the two. Not that I'd refrain from watching any of the rest of them. I've seen some of the other ones and always enjoy myself.

I'm not much interested in the films for the next couple of weeks. They venture into the 70s, which is not a preferred time period for me for movies. There are a few good ones from the 70s (The Godfather and Saturday Night Fever leap to mind), but on the whole, I don't much like that era. Things got a little gritty and dark around then, and I tend to feel sort of depressed or dirty at the end of the "masterpieces" of the time - Chinatown, Cabaret, etc. I prefer leaving the theater feeling better than when I went in - laughing a lot or feeling moved, but not creeped out.

Just thinking about those movies makes me want to go watch a cartoon or pet a kitten. Pleasant thoughts! Sunshine thoughts! Go to the happy place...

*Added later: I forgot to mention one of the best parts of viewing these old movies - the supporting cast! You never know who is going to pop up in one of these old films, just starting out in a career that later ended up huge. I make it a point to read the cast list at the beginning of the movie to see if I should keep an eye out for anyone. Tuesday night, one of the supporting actors was a very young Cesar Romero. Holy Joker, Batman! And last night, it got even better. One of the supporting characters was played by an also very young Jimmy Stewart!

Another of the supporting actors was a woman I kept looking at and thinking I knew her, but I couldn't place her. The face and voice were familiar, but.... Finally it hit me. She played Blondie in the Blondie/Dagwood movies. Penny Singleton was her name, and in the Blondie movies she was, well, blonde, and very innocent and sweet. In "After the Thin Man" she was brunette and a shady dancing girl con-woman (you know how we brunettes are). I hadn't noticed her name in the credits, and I'm guessing I was the only one in the audience who recognized her, though I could be wrong. I'm going to assume the other people in the audience don't have brains filled with bizarre trivia like that, though. I choose to call it a gift.