The Thin Man (film)


The Thin Man is a 1934 American pre-Code comedy-mystery directed by W. S. Van Dyke and based on the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett. The film stars William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles, a leisure-class couple who enjoy copious drinking and flirtatious banter. Nick is a retired private detective who left his very successful career when he married Nora, a wealthy heiress accustomed to high society. Their wire-haired fox terrier Asta was played by canine actor Skippy. In 1997, the film was added to the United States National Film Registry having been deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
The film's screenplay was written by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich, a married couple. In 1934, the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. The titular "Thin Man" is not Nick Charles, but the man Charles is initially hired to find – Clyde Wynant. The "Thin Man" moniker was thought by many viewers to refer to Nick Charles and, after a time, it was used in the titles of sequels as if referring to Charles.

Plot

Nick Charles, a retired detective, and his wealthy wife Nora, are visiting New York City to spend the Christmas holidays. There, Nick is pressed back into service by Dorothy Wynant, a young woman whose father, Clyde, was an old client of Nick's. Clyde, the title's "thin man", was supposed to be on a secret business trip and promised to be home before his daughter's wedding, but has mysteriously vanished. She convinces Nick to take the case, with the assistance of his socialite wife, eager to see him in action. What appears to be a missing person case turns into a murder case when Julia Wolf, Clyde's former secretary and love interest, is found dead, and evidence points to Clyde as the prime suspect. Dorothy refuses to believe that her father is guilty. The detective uncovers clues and eventually solves the mystery of the disappearance.
The murderer is exposed at a dinner party: A skeletonized body, found buried in Wynant's workshop during the investigation, had been assumed to be that of a "fat man" because it was wearing oversized clothing. However, Nick alleges that the clothes were planted to hide the true identity of the body, which still has shrapnel from an old war wound in one leg and belongs to a "thin man": the missing Wynant. Nick deduces that the real culprit murdered Clyde once Clyde found out he had been embezzling from him, then murdered Julia who knew about Clyde's murder, then also murdered Nunheim, who witnessed Julia's murder.
Nick reveals the identity of the killer as Wynant's attorney Herbert MacCauley. Panicked, MacCauley tries to shoot Nick, but Nick punches him out.
Finally, Nick and Nora, as well as Dorothy and her new husband Tommy, celebrate as they take a train back to California.

Cast

Cast notes:

Screenplay

The film was based on the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett, released in January 1934. Hammett's novel drew on his experiences as a union-busting Pinkerton detective in Butte, Montana. Hammett based Nick and Nora's banter upon his rocky on-again, off-again relationship with playwright Lillian Hellman.
MGM paid Hammett $21,000 for the screen rights to the novel. The screenplay was written by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich, who had been married for three years. Director W.S. Van Dyke encouraged them to use Hammett's writing as a basis only, and to concentrate on providing witty exchanges for Nick and Nora.

Casting

Van Dyke convinced MGM executives to let Powell and Loy portray the lead characters despite concerns that Powell was too old and strait-laced to play Nick Charles and that Loy had become typecast in exotic femme fatale roles.
Skippy played Asta, the dog of Nick and Nora. Skippy was subsequently cast in two screwball comedy classics, The Awful Truth and Bringing Up Baby.

Filming

The film was shot with a budget of $226,408. For Powell's first scene in the film, Van Dyke told him to take the cocktail shaker, go to the bar and just walk through the scene while the crew checked lights and sound. Powell did it, throwing in some lines and business of his own. Suddenly he heard Van Dyke say, "That's it! Print it!" The director had decided to shoot the scene without Powell knowing it so that he would be as relaxed and natural as possible.
Van Dyke often did not bother with cover shots if he felt the scene was right on the first take, reasoning that actors "lose their fire" if they have to do something over and over. It was a lot of pressure on the actors, who often had to learn new lines and business immediately before shooting, without the luxury of retakes, but Loy credited much of the appeal of the film to Van Dyke's pacing and spontaneity. He paid the most attention to Powell and Loy's easy banter between takes and their obvious enjoyment of each other's company and worked it into the movie. The director often encouraged and incorporated improvisation and off-the-cuff details into the picture. In order to keep her entrance fresh and spontaneous, Van Dyke did not tell Loy about it until right before they shot it.
Powell loved working so much with Loy because of her naturalness, her professionalism, and her lack of any kind of "diva" temperament. Of her, Powell said:

When we did a scene together, we forgot about technique, camera angles, and microphones. We weren't acting. We were just two people in perfect harmony. Myrna, unlike some actresses who think only of themselves, has the happy faculty of being able to listen while the other fellow says his lines. She has the give and take of acting that brings out the best.

According to Loy, the actors were not allowed to interact between takes with the dog Skippy; trainers felt it would break his concentration. Skippy once bit Loy during filming.
Although she had great compliments for Powell's charm and wit, Maureen O'Sullivan later said she did not enjoy making the picture because her part was so small and the production was so rushed.
The scene of Nick shooting the ornaments off the tree was added after Powell playfully picked up an air gun and started shooting ornaments the art department was putting up.
Loy wrote that the biggest problem during shooting was the climactic dinner party scene in which Nick reveals the killer. Powell complained that he had too many lines to learn and could barely decipher the complicated plot he was unraveling. It was the one scene when several retakes were necessary, which brought up an entirely new problem. The script called for oysters to be served to the dinner guests and, in take after take, the same plate of oysters was brought out under the hot lights. "They began to putrefy," Loy recalled. "By the time we finished that scene, nobody ever wanted to see another oyster."

Reception

The film was released in May 25, 1934 to extremely positive reviews and was a box office hit, with special praise for the chemistry between Loy and Powell. Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times called it "an excellent combination of comedy and excitement", and the film appeared on the Times year-end list of the ten best of the year. "The Thin Man was an entertaining novel, and now it's an entertaining picture", reported Variety. "For its leads the studio couldn't have done better than to pick Powell and Miss Loy, both of whom shade their semi-comic roles beautifully." "The screen seldom presents a more thoroughly interesting piece of entertainment than this adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's popular novel", raved Film Daily. "The rapid fire dialogue is about the best heard since talkies, and it is delivered by Powell and Miss Loy to perfection." John Mosher of The New Yorker wrote that Loy and Powell played their parts "beautifully", adding, "All the people of the book are there, and I think the final scenes of the solution of the mystery are handled on a higher note than they were in print." Louella Parsons called it "the greatest entertainment, the most fun and the best mystery-drama of the year." The Chicago Tribune said it was "exciting", "amusing" and "fat with ultra, ultra sophisticated situations and dialog." It also called Powell and Loy "delightful". Harrison Carroll of The Los Angeles Herald-Express wrote that it was "one of the cleverest adaptations of a popular novel that Hollywood has ever turned out."
The film was such a success that it spawned five sequels:
In 2002, critic Roger Ebert added the film to his list of Great Movies. Ebert praised William Powell's performance in particular, stating that Powell "is to dialogue as Fred Astaire is to dance. His delivery is so droll and insinuating, so knowing and innocent at the same time, that it hardly matters what he's saying."
In 2000 American Film Institute designated the film as one of the great comedies in the previous hundred years of cinema.
The film is 32nd on the American Film Institute's 2000 list AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs and was nominated for the following lists:
The film grossed a total of $1,423,000: $818,000 from the US and Canada and $605,000 elsewhere. It made a profit of $729,000.

Trailer

The trailer contained specially filmed footage in which Nick Charles is seen on the cover of the Dashiell Hammett novel The Thin Man. Nick Charles then steps out of the cover to talk to fellow detective Philo Vance about his latest case. Charles mentions he hasn't seen Vance since The Kennel Murder Case, a film in which Powell played Vance, released in October 1933, just seven months prior to the release of The Thin Man. Charles goes on to explain to Vance that his latest case revolves around a "tall, thin man", just before clips of the film are shown.

Adaptations

The Thin Man was dramatized as a radio play on an hour-long broadcast of Lux Radio Theatre on June 8, 1936. William Powell, Myrna Loy, Minna Gombell, Porter Hall, William Henry, and Thomas Jackson reprised their film roles, and W. S. Van Dyke was host.

Home media

Long available on VHS and DVD, The Thin Man was released on Blu-ray Disc by the Warner Archive Collection on July 30, 2019. The 1080p transfer was taken from a new 4K remaster of the film's best surviving elements, with digital correction of a multitude of defects seen in earlier home-media releases. Blu-ray.com reported that the film "looks exceptional and, aside from a true 4K option, will likely never get a better home video release". Extras include the theatrical trailer, the 1936 Lux Radio Theatre broadcast, and the 1958 second-season premiere of the NBC television series.

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