Gutbrain Records

Saturday, 20 December 2008

Radio City Music Hall opened on December 27, 1932. Nick and Nora Charles were there. Chapter 14 of Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man (© 1933) begins with this: "That night Nora and I went to the opening of the Radio City Music Hall, decided we had had enough of the performance after an hour, and left".

It's worth noting that the back of the Vintage paperback edition describes the movie adaptation, not the book itself. You won't find any "wisecracks and martinis" in the novel — unless your idea of a wisecrack is "I don't care" and your idea of a martini is whiskey. And Nick and Nora Charles are about as "glamorous" and "romantic" as is the hero of The Stranger.