Literally everything we remember fondly about the Thin Man series is contained in the first scene of the second movie.
In After the Thin Man (1936) we find the famous New York detective Nick Charles (William Powell) and his San Francisco heiress bride Nora (Myrna Loy) in a first-class train compartment, enjoying booze before breakfast (when she tells him it’s time to pack, he quips that he’s “just putting away this liquor”).
Asta, their feisty wirehair terrier, turns up in an enormous hat box. Out on the train platform, they bump into one of the many cheerful small-time crooks that Nick Charles put away in his policing days and who now form his unofficial cheering section. Along the way we get a quick flash of Nora’s silk undies and those twin bunks the Hays Code always made Nick and Nora sleep in, even though we know they were probably not spending a lot of time sleeping.
He might get shot at, she might wind up in jail with the hookers, but the last scene will find them together on another train or another cruise ship, popping another cork and chasing Asta off the bed.
The Charleses are funny, sexy, and perpetually buzzed, and we love them for it.
What’s amazing about this scene is that After the Thin Man is the only movie where we get to see this exact version of Nick and Nora. In the first movie, The Thin Man, the atmosphere is just a little too grim: Nick and Nora don’t even show up until fifteen minutes in. By the time of the fourth movie, Shadow of the Thin Man (1941), Nora’s cutting back on the martinis, and by the fifth, The Thin Man Goes Home (1944), she’s making Nick switch to apple cider.
It’s not that Nick and Nora changed in the thirteen years between the first Thin Man movie and the last. America changed, and the Charleses had to adapt. In 1934, the year of The Thin Man, people were still close enough to Prohibition and bread lines to enjoy watching rich people get snaffled. 1944’s The Thin Man Goes Home finds them badly out of step with a country at war. Gone are the first-class Pullmans—Asta has to sleep in the baggage compartment, and the Charleses are forced to rub elbows with the hoi polloi to get there—and wartime rationing has made the martinis evaporate. As for the sex? Well, Nora’s a mother now, and she can’t be seen partying with her husband like she used to. Best not ask why Nick isn’t in uniform.
In spite of all this, it’s that early vision of Nick and Nora that’s endured, and it echoes even in the last and weakest of the series, 1947’s Song of the Thin Man. Their magic is that strong. For that we should thank Dashiell Hammett, who infused his characters with the wit-combat of his relationship with Lillian Hellman. We can also be grateful to the husband-wife writing team of Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, who penned the first two movies; and W.S. Van Dyke, whose light touch was sadly missed in the last two entries. But the real beauty is all in the casting.
The trailer for After the Thin Man promises the SAME authors, the SAME director, and most of all the SAME cast.
William Powell and Myrna Loy had already acted together in 1934’s Manhattan Melodrama and would go on to make fourteen films together, only six of which involved Nick and Nora Charles. They had the kind of screen chemistry that’s rarely seen nowadays: Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan only wish they clicked like Powell and Loy. When asked, William Powell always gave the credit to his co-star. He said that many stars know how to act, but Myrna Loy knew how to react. They were so naturally paired with each other that most people assumed they were married in real life. So much so that when Powell checked into a Montecito hotel with Jean Harlow, it caused a scandal—even though Harlow was his actual wife.
It almost didn’t happen.
Powell was an established star, thirteen years older than Loy, and she only got the part because Van Dyke promised he could finish shooting in less than three weeks. Not for nothing did they call him “One Take” Van Dyke: he got the job done in sixteen days.
I believe it’s the speed at which the team worked that makes those early films so fun to watch.
The actors make the kinds of confident choices you only see when the cameras are allowed to roll without interruption, and when the scenes haven’t been over-rehearsed. It also helped that these were “B” pictures, which means the censors weren’t always looking as closely as they might. Writers Goodrich and Hackett were masters at slipping innuendo into the dialogue. In The Thin Man, Nora comes home to find the police searching their apartment and asks, “What’s that man doing in my drawers?” Later, she mentions that she’d read Nick was shot five times in the tabloids, to which he replies, “It’s not true. He didn’t come anywhere near my tabloids.”
The writers managed to do all this without breaking any of the more obvious rules of the Hays Code.
The Charleses’ famous twin beds got to be a joke with the writers, who likewise put Asta and “Mrs. Asta” into twin dog houses (Mrs. Asta, it turns out, was stepping out on Asta: one of her puppies was absolutely sired by the Scottie next door). The sex appeal wasn’t literal but personal: the Charleses just get each other. He puts up with her rich society friends and she welcomes his jailbirds to their Christmas party. When they catch each other flirting—it happens a lot in the first two movies—they both take it in stride. When she asks why he doesn’t take a case, he answers that he’s too busy protecting all the money he married her for. When she finds out Nick had six martinis at dinner, she tells the waiter to bring her five more so she can catch up.
Of course, this is fantasy and yes, real-life alcoholism isn’t this much fun. No doubt if they made the Thin Man movies today, Nick and Nora would be in AA meetings. I’d like to think one of them would sneak in a hip flask.
Still, as Prince sang, life is just a party and parties weren’t meant to last.
After the Thin Man ends with Nora knitting baby booties. By Son of the Thin Man, Junior is wearing a kid-sized Army uniform and Nora is spying on Nick to make sure he’s not teaching their son how to bet on the ponies. The war was over by Song of the Thin Man—their swan song, as it happens—but the magic was gone. The characters have become cartoon versions of themselves. Asta has gone from being a normal terrier to a doggie detective who finds clues for Nick: you can imagine a 1970s cartoon version where Don Messick voices Asta and he says “Ruh roh!” a lot. Nora is, well, mostly at home with Junior. And Junior is now played by a young child actor named Dean Stockwell. The sly Manhattan humor has been replaced by screwball comedy banter, and the liquid manhattans are nowhere in sight.
All that said, should people get the full Thin Man collection?
Absolutely yes. Even the least of the movies is still Nick and Nora, still Powell and Loy, and their connection still outshines anything Hollywood can offer nowadays. By way of evidence—Nick was fond of evidence, though his investigative method basically consisted of getting people to confess—here’s a quick rundown of each film:
The Thin Man (1934)
This is the only one of the series to be based on an actual Hammett novel, and it comes with a heavy dose of noir. A noted scientist (the “thin man” of the title) disappears and everyone assumes he ran away with his secretary. Look for hard-boiled dames, glass-jawed palookas, and an indecently handsome, pre-Batman Cesar Romero.
After the Thin Man (1936)
By the time of the sequel, people had mostly forgotten the plot of the first movie and assumed that the “thin man” must be the reedy William Powell, the same way a later generation would assume that the shark’s name was Jaws. There’s still a touch of seediness in the shadows—Nora’s society friend is accused of murdering her gold-digging husband—but this is the one where MGM got the tone just right. A young Jimmy Stewart is weirdly effective as a villain, delivering his final you’ll-never-take-me-alive monologue like George Bailey caught embezzling from his savings & loan.
Another Thin Man (1939)
The last installment with the original creative team, and the series maintains its stride. Still, change is definitely in the wind: Nick and Nora have a baby to deal with, but fortunately they can afford nannies. By this time, audiences had come to expect a new Thin Man movie every two years, so it was possible to create some continuity between the films. We spend more time with Nora’s society set in the country, giving the film more of an Agatha Christie vibe. Sheldon Leonard (Guys and Doll’s Harry the Horse) plays the least convincing Cuban ever.
Shadow of the Thin Man (1941)
With the country on the verge of war, the idea of a detective with a permanent buzz had lost some of its thrill, so the new writers decided to give Nick a gambling addiction instead. A jockey appears to have been murdered and organized crime is involved. Look for a blink-and-you’ll-miss-her shot of Ava Gardner standing next to Nick’s car, and Plan 9 From Outer Space’s Tor Johnson as a wrestler, nearly unrecognizable with a full head of hair.
The Thin Man Goes Home (1944)
William Powell revisits his past in Life With Father territory as Nick goes home to patch up a family rift and stays to bust up a spy ring. The original Asta had retired by then, and director W.S. Van Dyke had died. Even Myrna Loy was too busy with the USO to take up the role, which is how it got delayed by a year. Small wonder that this is widely regarded as the least authentic of the Thin Man series. Are we really supposed to believe that Nick Charles grew up in an MGM-backlot town as the son of a country doctor? Some of its moments seem ahead of their time (a returning veteran is hinted to have what we now refer to as PTSD) while others have aged poorly: at one point, Nick actually spanks Nora in front of his parents and everybody laughs it off. Try to imagine that happening in the first Thin Man.
Song of the Thin Man (1947)
I have to imagine that MGM knew this was going to be the last Thin Man movie even while they were making it. William Powell is still his suave self, but he’s definitely slowing down. With the war over, we’re back in a world of nightclubs and gambling ships, but the steam has gone out. The plot—a bandleader is murdered—is too loaded with cogent morals to be much fun. The writers are clearly trying to jive up the dialogue with hepcat slang and pokes at jazz music (watch for Keenan Wynn as a clarinet player), but it doesn’t make the movie seem current. It just underscores how out of step Nick and Nora have become with the times. Still, my God, it’s Nick and Nora.
When the last movie ended, I felt a powerful wave of wistfulness and gratitude. This was a thirteen-year journey the audience had taken with these characters, and now it was over.
But I’d do it again.
And so should you.
When you get to the end, the only thing to do is go back to the first movie and watch how one of the greatest screen couples of all time made it happen.
Get the box set, experience the for-better and for-worse.
Try not to fall in love with them.
Try not to fall in love with Asta.
You will lose. I’ll bet the next round on it.
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