The Thin Man

Leo McCarey directed this classic screwball comedy in which Cary Grant and Irene Dunne play Jerry and Lucy Warriner, a couple whose marriage is starting to fall apart. Jerry informs Lucy that he's taking a vacation alone in Florida; instead, he holes up with his buddies and plays poker for a week (while sitting under a sun lamp so he'll have an appropriate tan). Lucy concludes that Jerry was never in Florida just as Jerry discovers that Lucy was spending her time with Armand Duvalle (Alex D'Arcy), a handsome voice teacher. Both Jerry and Lucy believe the other was unfaithful, so they agree to a trial divorce, with a bitter battle fought over custody of Mr. Smith, the dog (Lucy gets the dog, but Jerry has visitation rights). Determined to make Jerry jealous, Lucy continues keeping company with Armand while also dating Daniel Leeson (Ralph Bellamy), a wealthy oil man from Oklahoma…..

No one, but no one, painted a picture in song of despair and desolation like the Thin Man from the West Plains, Porter Wagoner. Forget the Nudie suit and the pompadour; Waylon Jennings once said that Wagoner couldn’t go pop with a mouthful of firecrackers, and these 40 songs prove it. Sure, the hits—27 of ‘em in all and every Top Ten solo smash—are here, like “A Satisfied Mind,” “Misery Loves Company,” “Skid Row Joe,” “The Cold Hard Facts of Life,” and “The Carroll County Incident,” but what elevates this collection above a mere best-of are the tracks lifted from Wagoner’s starkly compelling concept albums (complete with their amazing album art, some of which we’ve included here) like Confessions of a Broken Man, Soul of a Convict and Other Great Prison Songs, and The Bottom of the Bottle. Grammy-winning writer Colin Escott contributes notes to the package, which is newly remastered by Vic Anesini at Battery Studios in New York. Country music never got harder than this…this ain’t cry-in-your-beer country, it’s more like punch-in-the-gut poetry. Essential!

Madame Adele, once a great star of the Paris theatre, has fallen upon hard times. But she allows a young American performer, Marie Duval, to perform as the Madame Adele of old, and both become the darlings of Paris, one again and the other newly-crowned.

Porter Wagoner, the Thin Man from the West Plains, is a case of an artist often ahead of his time who always appeared hopelessly behind the times. He's among the most immediately recognizable figures in country music, largely due to his exploitation of TV – and flashy costumes – a good 20 years before the video boom. And while he's forever perceived as the man who tried to hold Dolly Parton back from pop success, he was also responsible, in many ways, for putting her in a career position where the issue could even arise. As for his music, after signing with RCA in 1952 he produced a wealth of superb hard country, and just as much of the most wretchedly oversentimentalized tripe you'll ever want to hear. The latter, of course, is half the reason he's loved.

The Last Time I Committed Suicide is a 1997 American drama film directed by Stephen T. Kay. Based on a 1950 letter written by Neal Cassady to Jack Kerouac, it stars Thomas Jane as Cassady. The cast also includes Keanu Reeves, Adrien Brody, Gretchen Mol and Claire Forlani. It received a limited release on June 20, 1997. The action of the letter took place in 1946, when Cassady was 20. The score was handled by composer Tyler Bates, who later collaborated with Reeves on the John Wick franchise. On July 29, 1997, a soundtrack album was released by jazz label Blue Note Records. It included the licensed jazz songs used throughout, as well as some of the original music created for the film.