The Thin Man (film) he almost takes the life of someone who knows too much. Cast notes: The film was based on the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett, released in January 1934. Hammett's novel drew on his experiences as a union-busting Pinkerton detective in Butte, Montana. Hammett based Nick and Nora's banter upon his rocky on-again, off-again relationship with playwright Lillian Hellman. MGM paid Hammett $21,000 for the screen rights to the novel. The screenplay was written by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich, who had been married for three years. Director W.S. Van Dyke encouraged them to use Hammett's writing as
The Thin Man kind of work; he was sick for many of those years and getting sicker. But he kept his work, and his plans for work, in angry privacy and even I would not have been answered if I had ever asked, and maybe because I never asked is why I was with him until the last day of his life. Following the success of the movie version of "The Thin Man" in 1934, Hammett was commissioned to work on screenplays for sequels. During the course of this work, he wrote "After the Thin Man" and "Another Thin Man", which, discovered amongst