The Thin Man

Today’s edi­tion of Reel Classics looks at The Thin Man, star­ring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles.  A third star of the film is Skippy, play­ing Asta, Nick and Nora’s wire-haired fox ter­ri­er.  Nick is a retired pri­vate detec­tive who has mar­ried a love­ly and rich Nora.  Instead of work Nick Charles now focus­es on drink­ing mar­ti­nis and flirt­ing with his enchant­i­ng wife.  They have returned to vis­it New York City after a four-year absence where Nick con­nects with many of his old friends.

One evening, in a bar, he is approached by a young woman who remem­bered him from some years ago when he was still a detec­tive.  Her name is Dorothy Wynant (Maureen O’Sullivan) and she tells him that she is wor­ried about her father, Clyde Wynant, who is miss­ing.  He is an inven­tor and had been roman­ti­cal­ly involved with his sec­re­tary Julia Wolf.  He had learned that she had stolen  $50,000 from him and had been see­ing oth­er men.  She wants him to locate her father. 

Nick is not inter­est­ed in return­ing to the detec­tive busi­ness, but Nora urges him on, think­ing it would be excit­ing.  He agrees, and short­ly there­after the girl­friend, Julia, is found mur­dered.  The police imme­di­ate­ly sus­pect the miss­ing, exploit­ed for­mer boyfriend Clyde Wynant.  Nick is not con­vinced and pur­sues his inquiries. 

After turn­ing up a num­ber of clues, includ­ing a decom­pos­ing body, Nick invites all the sus­pects to a din­ner par­ty where he plans to expose the mur­der­er.  He is ably assist­ed in his ven­ture by both Nora and Asta. 

The sto­ry­line is tak­en from the nov­el by Dashiell Hammett enti­tled The Thin Man.  The screen­play was writ­ten by hus­band and wife team Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett.  They incor­po­rat­ed the wit­ty and quick ban­ter between Nick and Nora, which is one of the delight­ful high­lights of this film.  The team was nom­i­nat­ed for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Adaptation for their efforts. They would lat­er write the screen­play for It’s a Wonderful Life and win a Pulitzer Prize for their play The Diary of Anne Frank. 

I’ll give you a cou­ple of exam­ples of the dialogue: 

When approached in the bar by Dorothy Wynant, Nick asks “Now how did you ever remem­ber me?”  She replies “Oh, you used to fas­ci­nate me.  A real live detec­tive.  You used to tell me the most won­der­ful sto­ries.  Were they true?” 

“Probably not,” he replied. 

Another exam­ple:

A reporter asks Nora “Say lis­ten, is he work­ing a case?” 

Nora states “Yes, yes!” 

Reporter: “What case?” 

Nora:  “A case of scotch.  Pitch in and help him.” 

And one more example:

Nick states “Oh, it’s all right, Joe. It’s all right.  It’s my dog.  And, uh, my wife.”

Nora:  “Well you might have men­tioned me first on the billing.” 

The film is filled with this type of exchange between Nick and Nora, and they seem to be total­ly enjoy­ing the adven­ture togeth­er.  And, it is one of the strengths of this movie.  Though it is a mys­tery, it is also a com­e­dy due to the ban­ter between the obvi­ous­ly hap­pi­ly mar­ried cou­ple.  The ban­ter in the nov­el was report­ed­ly based on the wit­ty exchanges in the rela­tion­ship between Dashiell Hammett and play­wright Lillian Hellman.

Interestingly, when peo­ple think of “The Thin Man” they gen­er­al­ly think of the char­ac­ter Nick Charles.  However, in the nov­el, “the thin man” actu­al­ly referred to the char­ac­ter Clyde Wynant.  However, the movie was immense­ly pop­u­lar and there were five sequels (from 1936–1947).  Fans referred to Nick Charles as “the thin man” and that phrase appeared in the title of all of the sequels. 

The film was orig­i­nal­ly planned to be a “B” movie and was sched­uled to be com­plet­ed in three weeks with a bud­get of $231,000.  The direc­tor, W. S. Van Dyke, was well known to com­plete works quick­ly.  In fact, his nick­name was “One Shot Woody.”  He filmed The Thin Man in twelve days.  It was released in May 1934 and was a major box office hit, earn­ing $1.4 mil­lion. It was one of the top ten mon­ey-mak­ers of 1934. 

Though Maureen O’Sullivan was lat­er quot­ed as being high­ly com­pli­men­ta­ry of William Powell (espe­cial­ly his charm and wit), she stat­ed that she did not enjoy mak­ing the movie.  She felt her part was too small and the film­ing was too rushed. 

The film received very pos­i­tive reviews.  Variety report­ed, “For its leads, the stu­dio could­n’t have done bet­ter than to pick Powell and Miss Loy, both of whom shade their semi-com­ic roles beautifully.” 

Film Daily wrote, “The screen sel­dom presents a more thor­ough­ly inter­est­ing piece of enter­tain­ment than this adap­ta­tion of Dashiell Hammett’s pop­u­lar nov­el.”  Louella Parsons said it was “the great­est enter­tain­ment, the most fun, and  the best mys­tery-dra­ma of the year.” 

The Los Angeles Herald-Express wrote that it was “one of the clever­est adap­ta­tions of a pop­u­lar nov­el that Hollywood has ever turned out.” 

The Thin Man was nom­i­nat­ed for four Academy Awards. Best Writing, Adaptation was men­tioned above, but it also received nom­i­na­tions for Best Picture, Best Actor (William Powell), and Best Director (W. S. Van Dyke). 

The American Film Institute lists The Thin Man at #32 on AFI’s Top 100 Funniest American Movies.  Roger Ebert includ­ed it in his list of Great Movies, say­ing William Powell “is to dia­logue as Fred Astaire is to dance.”

In 1936 Myrna Loy and William Powell reprised their roles in a Lux Radio Theatre ver­sion of the film.  A radio series based on Nick and Nora Charles ran in the 1930s, and Peter Lawford and Phyllis Kirk brought the char­ac­ters to tele­vi­sion, run­ning from 1957 to 1959.  In 1977 the char­ac­ters were again res­ur­rect­ed for a tele­vi­sion movie, Nick and Nora, star­ring Craig Stevens (Peter Gunn) and JoAnn Pflug.

Oh, and before we go any fur­ther, let me return to the oth­er star of the film, Skippy (Asta).  Skippy first appeared with William Powell in the film The Kennel Murder Case.  Skippy would appear as Asta in the next three films in the series, and also appeared in two clas­sic screw­ball come­dies, The Awful Truth (1937 — Irene Dunn and Cary Grant) and  Bringing Up Baby (1938 — Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant).

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) rat­ed this film at 7.9 out of 10.  Rotten Tomatoes gives it a crit­ics score of 98% and an audi­ence score of 94%.

One final note about the movie.  The trail­er is inter­est­ing in that it begins with William Powell as detec­tive Philo Vance (The Kennel Murder Case) meet­ing detec­tive Nick Charles, and dis­cussing the case of The Thin Man.  Powell played Philo Vance in the 1933 The Kennel Murder Case.

In search­ing stream­ing sites for the film I could not locate any free stream­ing sites.  The film is avail­able on DVD at the Clark County Public Library in the Thin Man Series collection.

Information for this Reel Classic review was gath­ered from Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), and Wikipedia.

Be watch­ing for the next Reel Classic, and in the mean­time, enjoy the trail­er below.