For the next month or so I will be sharing posts here and there about The Thin Man movies with William Powell and Myrna Loy.

The series is my favorite movie series of all time. The six movies kick off with The Thin Man (1934).

The Thin Man will be 91 years old this year and, to me and many others, it still holds up.

This cozy mystery masterpiece has hit the Top 100 movies list from a variety of film organizations and critics over the years and for good reason. My family owns the DVD set of all six movies so we can watch any of the movies any time we want.

If you haven’t seen this movie or the five sequels involving witty, often intoxicated, private detective, Nick Charles (William Powell), and his equally witty and mouthy wife, Nora Charles (Myrna Loy), then you’re missing out.

Each of the six movies is full of mystery, zaniness, misunderstandings, mishaps, and hilarious interactions between Nick and Nora and everyone else. Oh and a crime or two is mixed in too.

The crimes themselves, and how they were committed, are a bit dark at times, but never graphic or gruesome and the darkness is always overshadowed by the Charles’ antics.

The pairing of Powell and Loy was the ticket for success in the 1930s as they were in a number of movies together and are still considered one of the best movie couples of all time.

Their first film was Manhattan Melodrama (1934) and directed by the same director of The Thin Man, W.S. “Woody” Van Dyke.

The Thin Man is based on a book by Dashiell Hammet and as the movie starts, we find Nick has retired from being a Private Investigator in New York City to help oversee Nora’s wealth as an heiress in San Francisco. This leaves Nick with a lot of time on his hand to go drinking, goof off and do some general carousing, though never with women because he is completely and utterly devoted to Nora.

Nora would like him to get back to work, though, so when they go back to New York for a visit and Nick’s former client, Clyde Wynant (who is later described as simply a thin man — hence the name of the book/movie), goes missing. His daughter Dorothy comes to Nick for help, Nora gently, and later not-so-gently, suggests he help.

What makes this movie such a fun one that might bring an occasional gasp from viewers is that it is a pre-Hays Code movie. That means it was filmed before a bunch of rules went into affect about what can and cannot be shown or said in movies. That’s why there were a couple comments from some of the characters in this that had me gasping and then laughing.

For example:

Nick: I’m a hero. I was shot twice in the Tribune.

Nora: I read where you were shot 5 times in the tabloids.

Nick: It’s not true. He didn’t come anywhere near my tabloids.

Before I forget, what makes these movies even more fun is the addition of Asta, the couple’s wife-fox terrier, who also acted in Bringing Up Baby with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn and The Awful Truth with Irene Dunn and Cary. He’s a fun addition who always adds  to a scene.  At one point Nick tells a  criminal, (Summarizing here): Stay right there or my dog will get you. He’s vicious.”

All the while Asta is finding a place to hide under a table.

Asta’s real name was Skippy, by the way, and there are some fun stories about him, but I will share more about Asta/Skippy in future posts about the series.

So back in the beginning of the movie, before we even see Nick  and Nora, Dorothy Wynant goes to her inventor father to tell him she’s getting married.

During that conversation we learn that Clyde cheated on Dorothy’s mother years ago with his secretary and they are now divorced. Later we will see that divorce really wasn’t such a bad thing because the ex-wife is absolutely batty.

Anyhow, shortly after Dorothy told her father she was getting married, we learn that Clyde Wynant’s former secretary and mistress, Julia Wolf, has stolen $50,000 worth of bonds from his safe. Those were going to go to Dorothy for her wedding gift. Clyde immediately suspects Julia, goes to her apartment, and finds her with a man named Joe Morelli.

Julia confesses she took the bonds, but she can’t give them back. She already spent $25,000 of them.

Clyde isn’t a very nice man and tells her she better get the $25,000 back or she’ll pay. He then leaves for a business trip and presumably never returns because three months later, Nick is out at a bar back in NYC for a visit when he runs into Dorothy who tells him her father is missing. She asks if Nick will help find him but Nick brushes her off by saying he’s sure her father will show up.

Things change later while Nick and Nora are throwing a party and Dorothy shows up to say Julia has been murdered and she truly feels her father is in danger. Now Nora pushes Nick to help out.

“You know, that sounds like an interesting case,” she says to Nick. “Why don’t you take it?”

Nick chuckles. “I haven’t the time. I’m much too busy seeing that you don’t lose any of the money I married you for.”

The really quirky and memorable characters show up when Dorothy goes to visit her mother, Mimi, who — like I said above — is crazy, but also is married to a loser, jobless husband named Chris. Living with her mother is her  Mama’s Boy macabre-obsessed brother  Gilbert.

Gilbert is a bit of a nerd who walks around with a book and shows everyone how smart he is by using very big words and even bigger theories about things. He’s also a smart mouth.

At one point, he asks one of the cops: “Could I come down and see the body? I’ve never seen a dead body.”

The cop asks why he’d want to, and he says, “Well, I’ve been studying psychopathic criminology and I have a theory. Perhaps this was the work of a sadist or a paranoiac. If I saw it, I might be able to tell.”

Dorothy’s mother,  Mimi, is self-focused and selfish and though she was cheated on and might have been a victim in any other movie, she’s a total mess in this movie. Her biggest worry is losing access to her ex-husband’s money, which she has been able to hold on to through alimony. When Julia is murdered, she sees an opportunity to get even more of her ex-husband’s money.

Going back to Nick and Nora … What makes them so memorable, beyond their amazing banter, is how they show that adventure, sex, and adoration doesn’t end after the wedding bells ring. I love how affectionate and playful they are throughout the series.

The writing for them is absolutely outstanding, which is probably because the screenwriters (Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett) were told to focus less on Hammet’s story and more on the banter between the couple.

Some of my favorite exchanges:

Nora Charles: How many drinks have you had?

Nick Charles: This will make six Martinis.

Nora Charles: [to the waiter] All right. Will you bring me five more Martinis, Leo? Line them right up here.

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Nick Charles: Oh, it’s all right, Joe. It’s all right. It’s my dog. And, uh, my wife.

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

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Lieutenant John Guild: You got a pistol permit?

Nick Charles: No.

Lieutenant John Guild: Ever heard of the Sullivan Act?

Nora Charles: Oh, that’s all right, we’re married.

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Nora Charles: Pretty girl (about Dorothy Wynant)

Nick Charles: Yes. She’s a very nice type.

Nora Charles: You got types?

Nick Charles: Only you, darling. Lanky brunettes with wicked jaws.

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Nora Charles: All right! Go ahead! Go on! See if I care! But I think it’s a dirty trick to bring me all the way to New York just to make a widow of me.

Nick Charles: You wouldn’t be a widow long.

Nora Charles: You bet I wouldn’t!

Nick Charles: Not with all your money…

According to information online, Hammett based Nick and Nora’s banter upon his rocky on-again, off-again relationship with playwright Lillian Hellman and the book itself on his experience as a union-busting Pinkerton.

MGM tried to prevent Myrna Loy from being cast in The Thin Man by telling director Van Dyke that he could have her “only if she was finished in three weeks to begin shooting Stamboul Quest (1934),” according to TCM. Van Dyke not only completed Loy’s scenes but all of the production somewhere between 12 and 18 days.

“Known as “One-Take Woody,” Van Dyke often did not bother with cover shots if he felt the scene was right on the first take, reasoning that actors “lose their fire” if they have to do something over and over,” Rob Nixon wrote for TCM. “It was a lot of pressure on the actors, who often had to learn new lines and business immediately before shooting, without the luxury of retakes, but Loy credited much of the appeal of The Thin Man to Van Dyke’s pacing and spontaneity.”

It was Van Dyke, with that whole desire of his to create natural reactions, who worked out Loy’s classic entrance into the bar and restaurant at the beginning of the movie — all her packages spilling on to the floor as Asta pulls her down the hall toward Powell.

Loy was told about the scene right before they shot it.

Van Dyke took a similar approach with Powell by telling him to take the cocktail shaker, go behind the bar, and walk through one of the early scenes while the crew checked lights and sound.

Powell did so and ad-libbed some comments to the crew as he worked out the scene. Before he knew it VanDyke yelled “That’s it! Print it!”

The director had had the cameras rolling the whole time.

He liked his actors as relaxed and natural as possible which is why a scene of Nick shooting the ornaments off the tree was added into the movie because “Powell playfully picked up an air gun and started shooting ornaments that the art department was putting up.”

I couldn’t find quotes from Powell about working with Van Dyke but there are quotes about working with Powell because he loved working with her.

“When we did a scene together, we forgot about technique, camera angles, and microphones. We weren’t acting. We were just two people in perfect harmony,” he said. “Myrna, unlike some actresses who think only of themselves, has the happy faculty of being able to listen while the other fellow says his lines. She has the give and take of acting that brings out the best.”

You can find plenty of opinions and articles about this movie online, most of them positive.

The Blonde at the Film wrote on her blog in 2014, “The Thin Man (1934) is a truly delightful mystery-comedy chock full of snappy dialogue, fantastic stars, art deco sets, magnificent costumes, enough mystery to make it suspenseful, and enough alcohol to give you a sympathy hangover.”

Christopher Orr wrote for The Atlantic: “As Nick and Nora, Powell and Loy subverted the classic detective film with comic aplomb and presented an impressively modern vision of marriage as an association of equals. They were also cinema’s most glamorous dipsomaniacs, a reminder of a bygone era when Hollywood could still imagine that charm, taste, and good humor might go hand-in-hand with the copious consumption of distilled spirits.”

His opinion of the mysteries in this movie and the others is fairly accurate, even though not altogether positive: “The mysteries themselves tend to be somewhat disappointing–needlessly convoluted, with solutions that often hinge on a last minute revelation or “clue” of dubious import (for example, whether or not someone announced themselves before opening a door). Rather, the chief pleasure of the films is in spending time with Nick and Nora as they tease, cajole, and romance their way toward the conclusion.”

Film critic Roger Ebert wrote of The Thin Man, “William Powell is to dialogue as Fred Astaire is to dance. His delivery is so droll and insinuating, so knowing and innocent at the same time, that it hardly matters what he’s saying.”

He continued: “Powell plays the character with a lyrical alcoholic slur that waxes and wanes but never topples either way into inebriation or sobriety. The drinks are the lubricant for dialogue of elegant wit and wicked timing, used by a character who is decadent on the surface but fundamentally brave and brilliant.”

Have you seen The Thin Man? What did you think of it?

Up next (at some point)  I will be writing about the next movie in the series, After The Thin Man.

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Sources:

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2005/08/the-movie-review-the-thin-man/69449/

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2005/08/the-movie-review-the-thin-man/69449/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Man_(film)

https://www.tcm.com/articles/behind-the-classics/133583/behind-the-classics-the-thin-man-1934

https://www.goldderby.com/film/2024/the-thin-man-william-powell-myrna-loy/

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