I saw the movie, Double Indemity, and Fred MacMurray’s character, Walter Neff, lights matches with a one handed flick of his thumb. I have tried so very hard to do that but I fail every time. Please help.
You can’t do it with matches today. The trick was to use your thumbnail and it was easy. However the match had to be the “strike anywhere” variety. I think that all matches sold now are safety matches and will only ignite when struck on a special surface so it won’t work.
There’s a description of the technique in this thread:
Striking a Match
I bought a big box of “strike anywhere” matches just a month or so ago at a hardware store. They’re still around.
[irrelevant comment]Even ‘safety’ matches can be struck on a pane of glass - it’s smooth enough that they can slide rapidly across it without being abraded, but it’s grippy enough that the friction heats the match head, igniting it.
Can scratch the glass though; don’t say you weren’t warned.
[we now return you to the scheduled programme]
Back when I was a young she-hoodlum of the ramblin-woodsy-folksy-bluesy sort, I used to strike matches on the backside of my blue jeans. You’re only young once!
If your pants have a metal zipper, striking a match on your fly is a dramatic move. 
Yes. I looked in my own kitchen and sure enough, there is a box of strike-anywhere matches. However, either they are not as sensitive as those of the 30’s or I have lost the knack. I could flick them with my thumbnail and get the smell of burning but the matches never ignited.
By the way, there is a hazard involved. On rare occasions a little sliver of burning material gets caught under the nail. Very painful. It never happened to me but my cousing got bit once.
Of course, if Fred was lighting his matches from a matchbook, it would be easier when the movie was made, because the striker on matchbooks was on the front (or open side) of the book back then. You could easily bend the match onto the striker and snap it lit. The strikers were moved to the back of matchbooks during the early seventies (no cite, just personal memory).
Tellly Savalas did this during the early seasons of Kojak, when he was still smoking.
I haven’t seen Double Indemnity in many years, so if matchbooks weren’t involved, sorry.
No, MacMurray used his thumbnail. And bending the match down to strike it was hazardous. I’ve seen a couple of incidents of lighting the whole damned matchbook with a resulting burn that, although not extensive, was 3rd degree.
In my own hoodlummy, collecting Bar tricks to impress days, I’d strick that style of matches against my molars, and take the flaming match quickly out of my match and light a smoke with it. You have to be a little crazy and not mind a little sulphury chemical taste in the mouth.
And I knew more than a few Zippo tricks, too.
Swoosh, Pop, snap, puff, snap swoosh.
Yes, but as many of us like to say, you can always be immature!
Incidentally, when I was a pup, we used to wrap rubber bands around thread spools, insert match sticks, and shoot them at the sidewalk or anything else that might allow them to ignite. Sometimes, we would try to get the lighted match to rebound onto somone’s shoe or pants leg. We were so cool.
xo, C.
Ah, match tricks. As a young whippersnapper, my brothers and I discovered that a standard kitchen match fits perfectly into a Daisy[sup]TM[/sup] BB gun. Then you fired it at the wall and it would strike when it hit. Very cool.
On the very next day we learned how to prime and re-paint walls. :smack:
[sub]Damn, my mother was pissed![/sub]
The threadspool slingshot was optional. With the right hand motion, you can fling a kitchen match at nearly any hard surface, and get it to ignite. If you throw it hard enough and accurately enough, it’ll make a little bang, like a cap exploding. Bouncing the lit match onto someone’s shoe made for extra fun! 
As other folks have said, yeah, they still sell strike-anywhere matches (I think I got mine at Wal Mart)
Also, it’s possible to strike a match with your thumb, but in my experience, you have to be holding the match in your hand so just about only the match head sticks out, then run the tip of your thumbnail accross the top super-quick. For me it works about one time in three matchsticks (hence why I carry three at a time).
Once it started to flare, it is a good time to expose more of the matchstick to open air rather than the skin of your hand 
I keep two or three strike-anywhere matches in a tooth-pick holder (imagine a little round wooden carrying case for toothpick shaped things) for when I smoke cigars (Zippos, which I normally carry, just don’t light cigars all that well in my experience, or I’m lousy at using them for that purpose)
Oh, when striking the match with your thumbnail, keep in mind that it’s possible to flick the head off the match, sending a little fireball flying at stuff you might not want to set on fire, so keep that in mind. :rolleyes:
Yeah, but if the match ignites when you just hold it to your fly, you’ll really make an impression.
I used to use strike anywhere matches as ballast for paper airplanes. After throwing the planes off of a 14th story balcony, the planes would burst into flames when they hit the ground or side of the building. And strike anywheres were needed to build the quick and easy home made stink bomb.
If you think that lighting a match with your thumbnail is tough, remember in Them Mummy when Brendon Fraser lights a match off of Oded Ferers beard. That would be tough.
Now the real neat trick is to strike a match on a fly in flight!
Heh, I saw that trick on El Mariachi (Moco is always striking matches on the beard of his head henchman). You can also see the trick in the beginning of Desperado. I think the important thing is to get the match moving fast enough without getting it so close that it breaks the tip off on the guy’s face.
wanders into his room mate’s room to practice the trick whilst his room mate plays Battlefield 2
The only way, and I mean THE ONLY WAY to strike a match on your zipper, thumb nail, tooth whatever, is to use the right match to start with. It has to be a blue tip wooden match. Works every time.