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The Thin Man (1934)
Three and a half stars (out of four)
Full IMDb listing
"The Thin Man" is a real delight, not the least because it reminds us how different the rules were in 1934:
And the rules of moviemaking seemed different, too. Today, someone comes up with an idea for a movie, and maybe it even turns out to be pretty good. But it makes a lot of money and that gets the studio in a mad-ferret frenzy for a sequel. Hunky Male Lead became Hunky Member Of The $20,000,000 Club due to the success of the original, so his character is priced out of the script. Fortunately, Hollywood's pay scale is sexist, so they can still afford to get their lead actress back, but bang goes the onscreen chemistry which helped make the first movie work. Oh, and now that she realizes that they really need her for the film, she's demanding "input" on the script. It seems that her character is not, in fact, a sassy, catchphrase-spouting strip-club coat-check girl: it turns out (according to the pages faxed in from her spiritual aromatherapist) that she's a modern-day Cassandra, the corporeal expression of the inevitable shift from the classic orthic Goddess-figure to a more Andrean and malleable incult. Meanwhile, the two-dozen studio executives who took credit for the success of the last movie are waving binders crammed with Research and Studies proving to an accuracy of five decimal places that what the audiences liked about it were the freshness of the characters and the originality of the story, and stressing that if that's true then the best way to protect the studio's investment is to stick to the first script as closely as possible.
Hmm ... 271 words. Well, I ran a little long there, but there are certain horrors that are still fresh and I'm not who forgives easily.
Anyway, Hollywood used to do things differently. "The Thin Man" was only the first of six like-named movies made over thirteen years. They were mostly made with the same directors, crew, writers, production designers and actors as the previous ones, and since this was a working movie studio these were people who'd worked with each other before on other flicks, too. As a result, there was a deep familiarity among those working on the thing, and that comes across in each of the films in the "Thin Man" series. There's none of the hesistancy or supressed panic you sometimes see even in other films of the Thirties. It's like all of these people just got together and made a movie.
Most important to the continuity of the series was the obvious and delightful chemistry between its two leads: William Powell as former detective and current full-time tippler Nick Charles, and Myrna Loy as wife Nora, delighted to have been rescued from the boring life of a wealthy socialite. There's an innate familiarity between the two. It's not a question of scenes or dialogue, but something more holistic...it's in the way she passes him a martini shaker and the way she scrunches up her face in reaction to something he's just said. These days, you're wearily aware that an onscreen couple is together because the guy's demographics were in line, the lady had a big enough chest, and their agents were able to broker a deal. But you believe that there's a real affection between Nick and Nora.
And then there are the film's character actors. Studios used to collect them like PEZ dispensers, determined to own at least one of everything. There's a certain satisfaction in seeing (as in "The Thin Man") a weepy drunk guy in his one scene and knowing that he'd done Weepy Drunk Guy scenes in about thirty different movies and was considered the Olivier of that particular area of drama.
Given the great bench strength of "The Thin Man," its story is actually far better than it needs to be. An absent-minded inventor goes missing, and his assorted enemies and associates start dropping. When he becomes the focus of a police manhunt, his daughter (recently engaged, naturally) begs the legendary Nick Charles out of retirement to clear his name and allow his safe return. Nick — assisted by Nora, sometimes against his will — follows the case's leads through all strata of New York nightlife to get to the bottom of things.
"The Thin Man" isn't a Hitchcockian thriller or an Agatha Christie-style mystery. But there's something to be said for a film that knows it's just out to have a bit of fun and fulfills its mandate so exceptionally well.
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© 2000 Andy Ihnatko. May not be redistributed without permission. Studio PR types wishing to send Andy tapes, promotional clothing, or high-end video gear in hopes of securing a positive review are advised that such efforts are futile, but they're free to try to determine how high Andy's price actually is. Mail any and all pelft to Box 279, Norwood, MA 02062. He could use a new subwoofer for his home-theater setup.
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