Choice: Film

The Thin Man, NFT, London, SE1 (0171-928 3232)

Noel Coward's accompanist, Peter Greenwell, recently revealed an unknown verse to the Master's song "Mad About the Boy" which was sung in the guise of a businessman: "People I employ/ Have the impertinence/ To call me Myrna Loy...". Myrna (not a name that has made much of a comeback) played Nora (likewise) to William Powell's Nick in this, the first of a stream of successful movies about Dashiell Hammet's impossibly glamorous husband- and-wife detective team. Tolstoy told us that all happy families resemble each other, but if that's the case, why aren't all couples as gorgeous as these two fun-loving, fast-talking, fast-drinking folk? For 13 years they defined the term "screen chemistry" and delivered repartee to die for. You can spend the whole of the Bank Holiday weekend in a state of bliss, watching the pair of them in picture after picture. David Benedict