Review of The Thin Man (1934) by Rick R — 26 Feb 2010

The Thin Man (1934).

The story goes that director, Woody S. Van Dyke came up with a great idea after working with Myrna Loy and William Powell on the set of Manhattan Melodrama (1934). He loved their rapport that they had with each other. He also wanted to combine the super sleuthness of Powell's Philo Vance character with his screwball comedy persona. This all came together in The Thin Man.

Ex-private detective, Nick Charles (Powell) is more than happy to sit back (with cocktail in hand) and count his rich wife, Nora's (Loy) money. It's the end of prohibition and time to get happy. But, Dorothy Wynant (Mauureen O'Sullivan) bumps into him in a bar and asks him to find her missing Father (the thin man, Edward Ellis). On top of all this, his girlfriend/secretary, Julia Wolf (Natalie Moorhead) is found dead and the missing thin man becomes the prime suspect.

Nora seems to get off on meeting up with Nick's old cronies and even people he's put behind bars. There's all sorts of alcohol humor and play-on-word one-liners. Their dog Asta is also along to add to the comic relief. Since Nick has worked for Wynant before, police Lieutenant Guild (Nat Pendleton) wants his help on this case.

The whole Wynant family is kind of cooky, especially Mimi (Minna Gombell) but are they capable of killing anybody? And, what about all of these gangsters and other shady characters who seem to be coming out of the woodwork?

Naturally, the only thing for Nick and Nora to do is to gather all of the suspicious-looking suspects into one room and grill all of them until the murder confesses. That seems to always work for them.

This is a delightful, mystery,/romantic comedy, and it's well worth watching whenever it comes up on TV or better yet, get the whole Thin Man collection on DVD and see it whenever you want.