The Adventures of the Thin Man
and creating our episode of The Goofy Groom (Spoilers ahead!)
Up until now, Madison has been stepping into these OTR shows as the supporting character to the leading men. She’s either taken over for the “Girl Fridays” like in “Let George Do It,” “Sam Spade” and “The Shadow,” or she’s jumped in to the role of the “partner” like in “Dragnet,” “Gunsmoke,” “Superman,” and “Sherlock Holmes.” That is, with one exception. In our adaptation of “Night Beat,” Madison substituted for the lead reporter/detective, Randy Stone. Making “Night Beat” our largest female cast. That’s not easy to do in these OTR shows. While I have gender swapped a few characters along the way, since I’m trying to keep true to the era, most of the time I can’t. The absolute lack of women in positions of bosses, police force, business owners, or any other “high ranking” position is actually one of the reasons Madison is there. To point out the unbalanced sexism that was commonplace at that time in history and entertainment.
Well, when I took a look at the script for “The Adventures of the Thin Man,” I decided instead of replacing the wife and having Madison work alongside the husband (as in those other episodes) why not have her replace the husband? And I couldn’t be more thrilled with how the episode played out. Not only did our actress, Lara Kristine Elliott, get to live out a dream of playing Nora Charles, but we also got to have the lovelorn Bingo Burns, and the female villain, Jane. The entire scene with Nora and Madison pretending to be the newlywed couple was a blast to write! In the original script, Nick and Nora are hesitant to play the newlyweds because they’ve been married for so long, they are embarrassed to have to show that “newly married” affection to one another. Now swap out Nick for Madison and the extra layer of Madison being in drag and having to kiss Nora! (It’s cool, Madison was in a sorority). Tons of fun.
My absolute favorite part of this episode is Bingo Burns (played by the amazing Meghan Peacock). Madison gets a taste of her own medicine teaming up with Bingo. Now Madison has to deal with a flaky girl who refuses to get her hands dirty and makes snarky comments. Will Madison learn from this experience? Sha-right.
Overall, this is a fun script because the original series was a bit more of a comedy than most of the typical detective noir shows. If you’re looking for the original episodes of “The Adventures of the Thin Man,” my source was www.OldRadioPrograms.us Some of the episodes were broadcast as their own series, and some were part of showcases. The audio quality isn’t the best, but if you want to go on a little journey with the real Nick and Nora, it’s definitely worth a listen. (Happy to share other links if you got ’em! Put them in the comments section!)
