In Like "Thin"

This is my entry in the Bill and Myrna New Year's Blogathon hosted by Phyllis Loves Classic Movies and The Flapper Dame.

The comedy/mystery The Thin Man was the first to feature Dashiell Hammett's characters, and the success and popularity of the booze guzzling high society pair spawned no less than 5 sequels.  All of the sequels featured a variation on "The Thin Man" even though the original thin man was only a character in the first movie.  But you could be forgiven if you thought that the title character was referring to Nick Charles.

Nick and Nora Charles are a parody in and  of themselves.  Before I ever saw The Thin Man, I saw Neil Simon's Murder by Death, which featured parodies of several famous detectives, but in particular was a parody of the Nick and Nora duo, with David Niven and Maggie Smith playing Dick and Dora Charleston.  It wasn't until I saw the original characters that I realized just how exquisite Niven and Smith's parody of them was.

Dashiell Hammett's  main claim to fame was undoubtedly the character of Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon, but I would think that the Charles duo would be a close second.   And much of that is due to the excellent efforts of Powell and Loy in the film roles.  In fact, to quote Roger Ebert in a review he did of this same film "William Powell is to dialogue as Fred Astaire is to dance."

And Myrna Loy is no slouch either, although she is at her best when she makes those cute little faces at Powell rather than a witty response.



 

But despite all this, the real star of the film is Skippy, the terrier who plays Asta, their pooch.  This dog is a scene stealer from the get-go. This mutt is a bigger camera hog than his contemporary, Terry, who played Toto in The Wizard of Oz.

There you go.  Now that you have been introduced to the stars of the show, on with the show.

The Thin Man (1934):

Dorothy Wynant (Maureen O'Sullivan) comes to her father's workshop to announce her engagement and impending wedding to Tommy (Henry Wadsworth).  Her father, Clyde (Edward Ellis) is an eccentric inventor who works in a laboratory designing new devices.  Dorothy learns that Clyde is on his way out of town but she exhorts him to be back in time for her wedding, which has been scheduled to occur in 3 months.

Within the first 15 minutes of the movie we discover that not only does Clyde's secretary have a secret lover on the side, but that she has been trying to bilk Clyde out of money for her own security.  Not only that, but Clyde's ex-wife, Mimi (Minna Gombell) wants more money than she got from the divorce.  She has a gold-digger husband (played by Caesar Romero in an early role) who also lurks at the fringe wanting more money.  There is a lot of skullduggery going on early in the film, and a lot of red herrings are thrown at the audience, but it's all in fun, because the real stars haven't come on the scene yet.

Enter Nick Charles (William Powell), who in his first appearance is trying to show the bartender how to mix drinks.  His style is to mix them, based on the contents, to a rhythm of a dance number.  (Wonder if James Bond knows about this...)  Nora (Myrna Loy) shows up with Asta and the repartee begins.  One of the first funny bits is when Nora asks Nick how many martinis he's already had.  When he replies 6, Nora tells the bartender to line up 5 more for her.  These are two lushes who are competing with each other, but instead of doing it for superior ranking in ability to hold their liquor, they are doing it out of love.  (Whether that's a good thing or not is debatable...)

Dorothy, whose father it turns out was an old client of Nick's from his days as a professional private detective, approaches him to find out what has happened to her father.  It seems he has not been seen since that meeting 3 months earlier and no one seems to know what has happened to him.  But circumstances crop up almost immediately.  His secretary/mistress turns up dead and the guilty finger seems to point at Clyde.  She had been sponging money off him for some time.  Which didn't set too well with the ex because she wanted to keep dipping her finger in the pie.  In fact, it was she who discovered the body of the mistress.... hmmm...

 The suspicions abound as to who is more deeply involved in the affair than they are letting on, but police lieutenant John Guild (Nat Pendleton) is convinced that Clyde is the culprit and is intent on locating him.  When another dead body turns up, the fingers still point primarily to Clyde, but Nick is convinced of his innocence, enough so that he constantly presents a 2 to 1 bet with Lt. Guild that Clyde is innocent and that someone else will eventually come to the fore as the guilty party.

At Clyde's laboratory a secret basement is discovered where a skeleton is discovered.  Due to the clothes that cover the skeleton, it is deduced by Lt. Guild that the body is that of a man that had been blackmailing Wynant, the same case that Nick had been working on for Wynant several months back.  And once again, the outcry is that Wynant is the guilty party.  All except for nick who still insists that Wynant is innocent.


The finale of the case is revealed in the quite Agatha Christie-ish like fashion, all of the suspects are gathered at a dinner party where Nick finally solves the case.  Of course, it's probably no surprise to any one familiar with these types of movies, but Nick is correct in his prediction that Wynant is innocent of any of the murders.  What is surprising is the details of where and what Wynant had been doing in the preceding 3 months.  No spoiler alerts here; watch it for yourself.  If nothing else for the comic parts.  As a detective story it is lacking, in my opinion, but the comedy makes it worth a view.



Well, the martinis are calling, so I'll be off.  Drive home safely, folks.


Quiggy