Nick and Nora Charles the bantering, romantically involved detective duo has become a well-used trope in literature, stage, screen, and television ever since. The characters first appear in Dashiell Hammett's best-selling last novel "The Thin Man" (1934). Nick is an alcoholic former private detective who retired when he married Nora, a wealthy Nob Hill heiress. Hammett reportedly modeled Nora on his longtime partner Lillian Hellman, and the characters' boozy, flippant dialogue on their relationship. (The novel also mentions that Nick was once a Pinkerton detective, as was Hammett.) The novel is considered one of the seminal texts of the hard-boiled subgenre of mystery novels,
Mabel and Fatty Viewing the World's Fair at San Francisco Mabel and Fatty Viewing the World's Fair at San Francisco Mabel and Fatty Viewing the World's Fair at San Francisco is a 1915 American short comedy-documentary film both starring and directed by Roscoe Arbuckle and Mabel Normand. Producer Mack Sennett brought Arbuckle and Normand to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, also known as the 1915 San Francisco World's Fair. They turned the cameras around, using the Fair crowds as extras and the Fair itself as a free background. Arbuckle and Normand clowned around and interacted with the Fair's surprised attendees. The film ends with a nighttime view of the fair, including