The Thin Man

"I'm a hero. I was shot twice in the Tribune."
"I read where you were shot 5 times in the tabloids."
"It's not true. He didn't come anywhere near my tabloids."

Wealthy inventor Clyde Wynnant (Edward Ellis) has been missing for months.  When his secretary / mistress, Julia (Natalie Moorhead), is murdered all fingers point towards Wynnant but no one can find him.  His daughter, Dorothy (O'Sullivan) is concerned and convinces renowned detective Nick Charles (Powell) to come out of retirement to find her father and prove his innocence.

Despite believing in Wynnant's innocence, Nick is reluctant to come back to work.  However, he is pulled in when the police and reporters working the case and the gangsters with ties to the victim all converge on his apartment.  Who murdered Julia?  Was it Wynnant's cash-strapped ex-wife Mimi (Gombell), Mimi's deadbeat husband Chris (Cesar Romero), Wynnant's creepy intellectual son Gilbert (William Henry), any of the men in Julia's life?


Based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett, this film was the catalyst for subsequent mystery / detective books and movies.  While Hammett only wrote one "Thin Man" novel, this film spawned five sequels and a TV show in the late 1950s.  William Powell and Myrna Loy have excellent chemistry and portray a married couple that actually enjoy each other.  They come from different worlds, have different friends, but they just work.  The movie focuses more on their relationship and chemistry than the actual case.

The film introduced the detective genre to revealing the killer to all the suspects simultaneously... the scene were all the suspects are brought together and the detective explains the story and finally points out the guilty party, who is the person you'd least expect.  In this film, it is done over a dinner party... where Nick breaks up his narrative by pausing to speak to specific people, putting the person on edge and leads you to believe they are the killer, when in fact he is just asking them an unrelated question.

An excellent film, worth checking out!

The Thin Man (1934) 91 minutes
Director: W.S. Van Dyke
Starring: William Powell as Nick Charles
Myrna Loy as Nora Charles
Maureen O'Sullivan as Dorothy Wynnant
Nat Pendleton as Insepctor John Guild
Minna Gombell as Mimi Wynnant