The Thin Man
To a certain extent, it’s hard to imagine that the stories of “The Thin Man” and “The Maltese Falcon” could possibly come from the same author, but as you start to consider the plot mechanics of both, Dashiell Hammett’s voice comes through loud and clear. Turned a few degrees in another direction, and Sam Spade’s search for the Falcon could be executed easily as a dark comedy. But John Huston’s treatment of that story works as effortlessly for that film as W.S. Van Dyke’s does here. “The Thin Man” makes more sense as a comedy, just as “The Maltese Falcon” makes sense as a hard boiled noir, and it has to do with the nature of their main characters.
I’m a little shocked that no one has tried to update “The Thin Man” for modern audiences, because the nature of the premise makes it seem like any filmmaker would want to pair a couple of stars together, and let them rip while solving mysteries. Then again, you watch TV shows like “Moonlighting,” “Bones” and “Castle,” and you see the blueprint of “The Thin Man” loud and clear. Those couples at the center of the shows don’t start married, however- I guess there’s more interest for modern writers in keeping things at a simmer before putting the stars in bed together- but you’d think, in all that time, someone would get the idea to go back to the source, and give us a new Nick and Nora Charles. I’m fine if they don’t, however- the originals work just fine for me.
That “The Thin Man” tells a complex, and entertaining, murder mystery within 90 minutes should be a shot across the bow to filmmakers and screenwriters who feel the need to pad out storylines because they think bigger equates to better. But thrift is not what makes “The Thin Man” a terrific film, but the riotous manner in which we start with an inventor being visited by his daughter and her fiancee, and make our way to as iconic a dinner scene summation of a murder plot as the movies have ever delivered. That final scene is a scenario that feels wholly like a construct of fiction rather than anything that would happen in reality- would the police ever agree to such a scenario?- but it almost always works because it leaves the exposition to one person, and seeing others react to them laying out the facts of the case. In this case, it is William Powell’s Nick Charles, and few scenes are as purely delightful.
The first time we meet Nick Charles, he is at a bar teaching a bartender how to properly mix drinks. How he ends up solving a murder case- or rather, several- is part of the fun in watching this film go, but by the end of that scene, everything is in motion for the former detective and his rich wife, Nora (Myrna Loy), to become the center of a cast of characters trying to solve a murder, and find the inventor from the beginning of the film. How Nick gets involved is because he knows the daughter (Maureen O’Sullivan) from when she was a kid, and it’s her who wants to have him look into her father’s disappearance. He’s content sharing drinks and snappy dialogue with Nora, and walking their dog (who steals the movie), but almost in spite of himself, he finds himself at the heart of the investigation.
The screenplay by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich is as smart and witty as any screenplay ever written. This is almost a screwball comedy in many scenes- especially the first scene where pretty much everyone associated with the case ends up at the Charles’s apartment- and Powell and Loy are as wonderful an on-screen pair as we’ve seen in the movies; it’s no wonder MGM made five more films with them as these characters. If the plot gets away from you, I completely understand that- that’s kind of a common occurrence with movies from Hammett’s work- but even if it does, the film’s charms come from its dialogue and the performances. That’s what you’re going to be smiling about by the end.
