Wonderful Movie

The Worst Film Ever

Best movie of this year hands down!

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

"Another Thin Man" was so joyously received by audiences that another entry in the series became inevitable. This time, M-G-M abandoned all attempts to sheet the title home to the character played by Edward Ellis in the original movie. In the notoriously forgetful minds of picture-goers, Powell himself had enacted "The Thin Man" from the word go! The trailer for "Shadow of the Thin Man" (1941) therefore makes it quite clear that Nick is "Mr Thin Man" and that Nora is "Mrs Thin". For this outing, the couple are re-united with Sam Levene from "After the Thin Man". The director once again is Van Dyke; the producer, Hunt Stromberg; but the writing has been switched to Harry Kurnitz and Irving Brecher. Once it starts to get under way (after a couple of extremely tedious and wholly superfluous introductory scenes featuring Nick Junior), the plot sounds promising. Indeed, the middle section of the movie is actually quite entertaining, thanks to a couple of stand-out crowd scenes (the wrestling match in which the combatants take time out to say goodbye to Nora and the restaurant all-in, which gathers impetus once the waiter tricks Nick into ordering sea bass) and a spooky hunt through the deserted corridors of the jockey club. The support cast comes into its own too, with young Donna Reed making a most attractive heroine, the more mature Stella Adler excelling as a racketeer's sexy bit of low-life ("Your accent's slipping," Nick pungently reminds her as she berates him for spurning her advances) and some nice studies in villainy from blackmailing Alan Baxter, dapper Loring Smith and partner Joseph Anthony. Unfortunately, the script nosedives into one of those boring round- up-all-the-suspects finales in which the real killer is tiresomely discovered to be the one person we thought to be totally above suspicion!It's most pleasing and surprising to discover that the unsung director/editor of the trailer agrees with my conclusion that the picture is far too long and way out-stays its welcome. He concludes the merry-go-round sequence with a snappy out-take of Powell looking queasy instead of all the endlessly boring double exposures the film itself uses. Even more importantly, instead of the hard-yards tedium of the final round-up, he uses a delightful comeback from Stella Adler. When Nick waves his hand of suspicion in her direction, she retorts, "I haven't killed any jockeys for at least three weeks!" This out-take also doesn't figure in the finished movie.

... yes and no is the answer. The franchise relies on the rapport between Loy and Powell and that remains firmly intact. The world that Nick and Nora inhabit is as unreal as the Carvel of Andy Hardy and if you want to resist that rather than surrender to it why bother to see the movies. The topicality is reinforced when journeyman director Woody Van Dyke is given his military title of 'Major' in the opening credits though apart from that there are no references to the war. Arguably the longest shadow of all is thrown by Stella Adler, arguably, on the evidence of this performance, the weakest actor in the Adler dynasty - Jacob, Luther - but was inextricably linked with the Group Theater and went on to become a Player as well as a thorn in the side of Fox in her capacity as 'coach' to Marilyn Monroe. The unreal reel world of Nick and Nora is typified by Sam Levene, a police officer (Lieutenant) who allows all and sundry to be present whilst 'interviewing' suspects and is happy to play Second Banana to Nick. The name Harry Kurnitz almost always guarantees a fine script, one of the wittiest man around - a sort of backstage Oscar Levant - Kurnitz also penned detective stories under a John Doe and he's not afraid to throw in a gag about the Super Chief that would have gone right over the heads in Peoria and Dubuque. In sum a pleasant enough entry in the franchise.

The fourth Thin Man outing, Shadow of the Thin Man finds Nick and Nora Charles back in San Francisco where they happen to be at a race track when a jockey is killed in the tack room. The jockey's death uncovers an investigation by the state crime commission involving them trying to indict a syndicate of illegal bookmakers. Two rival newspaper reporters are trying for a scoop on the story and one of them has some other interesting activities going for him.Powell uncovers a good group of suspects brought together for the inevitable finale. The murderer and he notches two to his credit before he's finally caught is one the audience won't suspect. Powell does show off a bit here though, the murderer with a slip of the tongue is given away to the audience. I think the writers just wanted Powell to show off before the other suspects, he could have nailed the murderer a reel before he did.The usual witticisms involving the Charles's parenthood are present. Funniest scene is when Loy tries to get Powell to go off his usual liquid diet so their son will learn to drink milk.

This is the fourth of the THIN MAN movies. As you would expect, the earliest of these movies are the best, as the originality of the series began to wane by the 4th movie. Regardless, it's still high quality series entertainment and is well worth watching. Unfortunately, in addition to being less "fresh", the witty dialog also seems a little less witty--I just didn't laugh as much with this outing as the others--even the later episodes. So the final verdict is that this is a decent but not great entry in the series. If you haven't seen the first ones, see them first. If you see this one first, the movies might seem just a bit mediocre--bear with it they are wonderfully fun movies.