When The Thin Man Got
Thinner-With “The Thin Man Goes Home” Film Adaptation Of Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin
Man In Mind
By Film Critic Sam
Lowell
[Take the following as
something of a disclaimer since I have decided to embark of a look at several
of the Thin Man films that came out in the 1940s. These days now that I am,
well, let’s call the situation semi-retired from reviewing films I made no
pretense to viewing film series like the famous 1940s The Thin Man film series under discussion here in chronological
order. Now I go by happenstance. That happenstance got worked out this way on
this series. I happened to see a DVD copy of Shadow Of The Thin Man highlighted at my local library for some
reason. Since I have spent a fair amount of time recently reviewing black and
white films I grabbed this one. I loved to watch such films in my younger days,
my teenage days, when I would go to the
Majestic Theater box of popcorn in hand in Riverdale some distance from Boston where
I would spent many Saturday afternoons watching double features. That is the
genesis of this out of order series of reviews for which I take full
responsibility. S.L.]
Recently in a review of
the fourth in the famous Myrna Loy-William Powell seemingly never-ending The Thin Man series, Shadow Of The Thin Man and again later
commenting on the original film adaptation,
I mentioned that a long time ago, or it now seems a long time ago, I had a
running argument with the late film critic Henry Dowd about the alleged decline
in manly film detectives after the time of Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade and
Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in the 1940s. By that Henry meant tough guy,
no holds barred, non-filter cigarette smoking, Luckies or Camels, bottom of the
desk drawer hard shell whiskey neat drinking, who didn’t mind taking or giving
a punch, or taking or giving a random slug for the cause detectives.
He had based his opinion strictly on viewing the films of the famous detective
couple Nick and Nora Charles.
Henry Dowd believed that
with the rise of The Thin Man series that previous
characterization of a model detective, his previous characterization Henry was
given to the imperative tone, switched from the hard whiskey drinking guy to a
soft martini swigging suave guy with a soft manner and an aversion to taking
risks, certainly to taking punches or slugs. Hell, in that film under review at
the time not only had Nick been married to Nora but they had a kid, not to mention
that damn dog Asta, a regular entourage to weigh a guy down. Back in the day
what had surprised Henry in our public prints argument had been when I told him
that the same guy, Dashiell Hammett, who had written the heroic tough guy
detective Sam Spade had also written the dapper Nick and charming Nora
characters. Henry did not believe me until I produced my tattered copy of
Hammett’s The Thin Man which had started the whole film
series. Thereafter he kept up the same argument except placing The Thin Man as an aberration probably
do to Hammett’s known heavy drinking or that he was trying to soften his own
Stalinist-etched persona with such an obvious bourgeois couple. Jesus.
My objection to Henry’s
“decline of the manly” detective theory back then had not been so much about the
social manners or the social class of the couple in the series, a reversion to
the parlor detective genre before Hammett and Chandler brought the genre out of
the closet and onto the streets, as the thinness of the plots as they rolled
out each new product. I continue to tout the original film in series The Thin Man as the one everybody should
view and take in the rest if you have restless hour and one half or so to
whittle away.
I had held my viewing of
Shadow up as a case in point. And the
same is true of the film being reviewed here The Thin Man Goes Home. The story line is basically Nicks’ revenge
for his doctor father’s disapproval of his choice of a career in law
enforcement and private detection rather than the gentile medical profession.
And his drinking-centered urban lifestyle as well. He and Nora travel to the
quiet oasis from crime Podunk town where he had grown up for a vacation.
Apparently in Podunk the mere appearance of a famous ex-private detective was
enough to bring local society down with a bang. Make that bang-bang since a
murder of a young factory worker cum artist is what drives Nick to beat
everybody including the public coppers to the punch-to finding the murderer and
the reason for his death and well as ultimately the death of his Apple Annie
mother who was trying to protect him. The usual cast of characters show up with
their own grab bag of motives to do the rotten deed.
In the end the town,
probably like a million other towns had its fair share of the jealous, of the
crooked and those who craved hard cash. Without giving too much of the not too
much to give away the struggle for the hard cash centered on grabbing plans for
a new style propeller from the local defense factory and sell them to the
highest bidder-meaning foreign interests. Naturally such unpatriotic behavior
had to be stopped. And Nick proved his medal (Nora pretty much stood around and
looked beautiful in his one) to his father who coughed up a “good work” comment
at the end. So you can see even every ready Hollywood was running out of
serious work for our fair couple to feast on.
Enough said except that
I also mentioned that if one had just one film in the series then you had to
opt for the original one based far more closely on that tattered copy of
Hammett’s crime novel. Those were the days when Nick, still besotted by Nora,
but not knocked over by her could work up the energy to do more than mix martinis.
(Or to revive the old Dowd argument before Hammett let the bottle get to him or
while working under the umbrella of Popular Front days directed from red
Moscow).
