Once Again, The Thin Man Thinned-With Myrna Loy And William Powell’s “Shadow Of The Thin Man” In Mind

By Film Critic Sam Lowell

Sometimes you just can’t win in the film reviewing racket which after all unless the thing is a real stinker is a question of subjective tastes for the most part, meaning allowing a huge opening these days for inspired, and uninspired, amateurs to take pot shots at those of us who have long labored in the cinematic vineyards. Take a recent review that I did on one of the old time The Thin Man films, the fourth in the series, Shadow of the Thin Man, where I mentioned a dispute I had had long ago with the late film critic, my fellow professional film critic, Henry Dowd, over the changeover in the direction that film (actually film noir) detectives were taking in the 1940s. At least that is where old Henry placed the changeover from the hard-boiled, hard-drinking, love ‘em and leave ‘em, take a punch or two, take a slug or two for the cause, for the client to a reversion to the more gentile parlor detectives that guys like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler were desperate to ween the genre from as represented by the dapper Nick Charles, His wife, a wife for chrissake, Nora and freaking dog Asta both of whom only added to the sense of gentility.

In that review I had noted that I had taken some issue with my friend Henry on his take on the change-over since the same guy, Dashiell Hammett, had written not only the individual prototype of the classic hard-boiled detective, Sam Spade, he out of a few short stories in the detective magazine Black Mask and more famously The Maltese Falcon, crime novel and later film starring Humphrey Bogart the visual epitome of the hard-case take no prisoners detective but the original The Thin Man  crime novel that the film series was based on. Dashiell Hammett had actually worked on the screenplays as well so I assumed that Henry Dowd would back off. He never did, always maintained that he had seen the trend coming, had sadly seen the tough guys fade with the gentile Nick Charles and continue through the 1950s, early 1960s with guys turning soft and depending on martinis and wit and not guts. (I had pointed out the case of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer but Henry dismissed that who series as so much anti-red, anti-commie Cold War claptrap and Hammer as a mental midget and Spillane, well, let’s let sleeping dogs lie on that one). Apparently the hoary ghost of Henry Dowd is still alive in the land as no sooner had my review hit the prints then some so-called inspired amateur (self-described) decided to take up the cudgels. Started whimpering about how social drinkers, martini sippers, drunks really, guys like Nick Charles fouled up the airwaves, and the screens for no serious purpose.

Naturally our inspired amateur, let’s call him Peter, no last name in case he has murder and mayhem in his heart after I finish dressing him down, picked up where Henry left off with one Samuel Spade as the epitome of what a pure private detective should be. Pointed out the now obvious facts that Spade was a classic love them and leave guy first with his partner Miles Archer’s wife, Iva, then into the beautiful sink hole with Bridget O’Shaunessey (and who knows what the real deal was with his office secretary Effie), wasn’t above fag-baiting the “light on his feet” Joel Cairo, took down the Fat Man’s gunsel without breaking out in a sweat. Took a few saps to the noggin, a couple of random shots when the deal went down. No question a tough and hard-boiled detective especially when he sent Bridget over for murder, murder one, of that partner Archer and I will not offer any argument against the straw man old Peter has tried to bring up from the depths.                 

What does our aspiring inspired amateur in though is when he tries to belittle the manliness of one Nick Charles, particularly in the film that I had reviewed. He raised all kinds of objections to the way that Nick operated on his case (and don’t forget Nora in the mix who saved his bacon at one decisive point). First he criticized Nick for even having a wife (apparently when confronted Peter assumed it was okay for a detective to be divorced as long as he was not still holding the torch, had learned that in in the tough private eye racket it was better to fly single but it was better to have been unmarried and maybe carrying some minor torch for a long burned out romance that could never have gone anywhere once the dame decided that white picket fences is what she craved). A wife who seemed to anticipate his every martini-sucking need (having no office, no office shown anyway he did not have the mandatory Henry-Peter “real” detective quart whiskey bottle complete with shot glasses in the bottom of the desk drawer).

Peter went apoplectic when he described how Nick had been burdened with having to take his small son out for his daily constitutional with that damn mutt Asta in tow. (He blew up at the idea that any tough guy detective even if he had been married would have consummated the thing with kids-Jesus). Moreover in the scene where Nick is berated by freaking kids on a merry-go-round for the “unmanly” act of not riding one of the ponies he was ready to leave the theater or throw the DVD out the window or some rash action like that. Moreover not only did Nick not take a punch, dodge a bullet in the whole episode but had to be rescued out of danger by the lovely Nora. Needless to say Peter panned the whole thing as the death of serious private eye genre material-Hammett screenplay or not.  

What our friend seemed to have missed is that Nick solved the crime, solved murder one against the work of the incompetent public coppers who would still be trying to figure the whole thing out (and as mentioned before able assists at decisive points by Nora, and a couple of assists by sleuth-like Asta as well. I will agree the kid added nothing to solving the crime but what the hell he was only four or five years old-detectives are made, not born). Brought a high-born guy to justice to boot. Didn’t need to put on a tough guy act when he had the brainpower to bring down the house on the bad guys. Moreover in the final analysis which drink Nick favored as long as it was hard liquor was beside the point-that whiskey bottle didn’t keep Sam from taking his lumps, maybe made him a little dull-witted when Bridget turned on her weapons, her sex. Enough said.