Review of Shadow of the Thin Man (1941) by Edith N — 30 Sep 2011

More of the Same, but What Else Do You Want?

I love [i]The Thin Man[/i]. (Contrary to popular belief, including apparently what the people who named the five later movies thought, Nick Charles isn't the Thin Man.) I love the five sequels. I love Johnny Depp. And that's why I'm really hoping Johnny Depp comes to his senses and doesn't play Nick Charles after all. Gods alone know who they're planning to get to play Nora. But William Powell and Myrna Loy are so iconic as the characters that I can't imagine anyone else in the roles and don't particularly want to. (Though the suggestion of Nathan Fillion was kind of intriguing; certainly he'd be able to handle the fact that Nick isn't himself upper class.) I'll admit it kind of makes watching any of the other eight movies they made together a touch challenging, since I was exposed to this series first, but that's just it. In my head, William Powell plays Frank Gilbreth in [i]Cheaper by the Dozen[/i], because how could Myrna Loy have twelve kids with anyone else?

For this one, they're back in San Francisco, Nora's hometown. They're living in a hotel suite with their son, Little Nicky (Richard Hall), and their maid, Stella (Louise Beavers). One day, Nick gets a speeding ticket on his way to the track, and while the cop (Edgar Dearing) is giving him an escort--to show his respect--they get caught up in a whole slew of cops on their way to the track. A jockey has been shot. It turns out he threw a race the day before, and Major Sculley (Henry O'Neill) wanted him to testify before a committee working to wipe out organized crime in the city. They want Nick's help, but he says he has to take Mrs. Charles to the wrestling match. They are watching the match when cops swarm the arena; Nick's friend, Paul Clarke (Barry Nelson), is accused of the murder of "Whitey" Barrow (Alan Baxter). Only he says Whitey was alive last he remembered, and then someone slugged him, knocked him out, and killed Whitey--taking an important piece of evidence about one of the syndicates while they were at it.

The Thin Man movies are sometimes a Before They Were Famous, and this one delivers nicely. There's the obvious fact that Paul's girlfriend, Molly Ford, is played by a twenty-year-old Donna Reed in her second film role. But there is also a brief walk-by of a very young Ava Gardner, newly arrived in Hollywood--so brief that you have to pause at just the right second to be sure it's her, but it's her. Her sole purpose is to be a young and pretty girl walking past the car when Nick and Nora get to the racetrack, and the only reason it's worth noting that it's her is that she became famous later. And fans of bad actors can revel in an appearance--with lines--by Tor Johnson as "Jack the Ripper," one of the wrestlers Nick and Nora are watching when Whitey is killed. And various of the other people in the movie went on to long, if minor, careers of their own, even if none of them were so famous as Donna Reed or Ava Gardner--or even Tor Johnson.

One of the interesting things about the series has always been the contrast between Nick's and Nora's lives in the time before their marriage. We know from [i]The Thin Man Goes Home[/i] that Nick actually grew up in Small Town America, a doctor's son. But when he got to New York and became a cop, he made underworld contacts the likes of which no one else seems to have done in history. He can't go anywhere without encountering someone he's had sent up the river at some point or another. Nora, as we know from [i]After the Thin Man[/i], comes from a highbrow San Francisco family. It's been clear all along that Nora is from money, and this film makes it clear that, much as she likes things like wrestling matches, she still doesn't actually know what to wear to them. On the other hand, it is her knowledge of the more delicate side of things which provides a vital clue here. And, come to that, I don't think her hat is all that bad!

This is not the strongest of the series, nor is it my favourite, but if you're going to watch the fourth movie in a series, there are worse fourth movies to watch. Honestly, I can watch these movies over and over again, and I have, since Mom bought the complete series on VHS when I was a kid. It's true that William Powell is in the running for first portrayal of an alcoholic to garner a Best Actor nomination--for the first one; he unjustly lost to Clark Gable in [i]It Happened One Night[/i]. And Nora drinks more than the average person as well. It's true that Nora is the butt of the joke a little more often in this one than I like. And it's true that the story, once analyzed, doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense. (Lieutenant Abrams, played here for the second time by Sam Levene, wouldn't have jurisdiction on the other side of the Bay Bridge!) Still, it's funny, and if the plot doesn't quite make sense, at least the solution hangs together properly. Which is more important, I suppose.