#05 - THE THIN MAN
A dry martini you always shake to waltz time.
The Thin Man
1934
Director: W.S. van Dyke
Starring: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Maureen O'Sullivan
Nick and Nora Charles drink a great amount of alcohol and occasionally solve crimes. This is the incredibly simple formula of one of the most entertaining and successful franchises in film history.
Shot, according to legend, in two weeks, MGM treated The Thin Man as a cheap B-movie. They wanted to pair Powell and Loy together after a first successful outing in Manhattan Melodrama, but threw them together into a low-budget, second-rate (or so they thought) picture. Instead, they ended up with one of the biggest blockbusters of 1934, garnering several Oscar nominations along the way, and audiences clamoring for more. Five sequels followed, and Loy and Powell worked together in seven other films. Theirs was an immensely successful screen pairing.
The central mystery of The Thin Man is the disappearance of George Wynant - the "Thin Man" of the title - an inventor-type who is first seen wishing his daughter (O'Sullivan) well on her engagement. Several months later, he is nowhere to be seen, and his greedy relatives and seedy associates are desperate to know where he is so they can mooch some funds off him. Only his daughter is legitimately concerned, and she brings socialites Nick and Nora Charles onto the case.
The opening ten minutes of the film are, I admit, a bit slow. We get the backstory of Wynant and his daughter, then we meet Wynant's mistress, her other boyfriend, his lawyer, and a whole mess of other unsavory characters.
Finally, the movie REALLY begins when we open on a night club scene around Christmas. Most everyone is out on the dance floor, but Nick Charles can't be bothered. Instead, he's dutifully explaining to the bartenders how to properly mix a beverage. Of course he is. Who else would know better than that famous lush Nick Charles? He is funny, charming, and hardly sober.
Then the movie shifts into a higher gear with the entrance of Nora, hidden behind a giant stack of Christmas presents, lead by Asta, their spaniel. She tumbles into the room, falling flat on her face. The gorgeous, elegant, sophisticated Myrna Loy enters a room in her first entrance of the film by falling flat on her face. I LOVE IT!! The two joke a bit, and then we learn just what type of marriage they have. Nora asks Nick how many martinis he's had. Six, he says. All right, she says, and promptly orders six martinis lined up in front of her so she can catch up with her husband.
Their marriage is truly a partnership. Nora matches Nick step for step, quip for quip, and drink for drink. She is enthralled with his sleuthing and INSISTS on getting in on the act. He is not annoyed by this; on the contrary, he seems enamored of his wife because she wants to be involved. The two love each other, they really do love each other. Most movie marriages involve a lazy husband and a nagging wife; this is hardly the case here. The Thin Man paints the portrait of marriage as a union, which, in 1934, was a pretty wild idea. Nick and Nora have an immensely modern marriage, and it makes it so much fun to watch a pair who love and respect one another having so much fun together.
By now, if you haven't seen the movie before, you probably think it's about a bunch of alcoholics. Six martinis? Really?!? There is a LOT of drinking in this film, and it's an issue I must confront. The drinking in The Thin Man is merely superficial; it is not meant to comment on societal ills due to alcohol, or be a heavy-hitting drama about co-dependent alcoholics. Prohibition had been repealed in 1933 and the US was still embroiled in the Great Depression. Hollywood was celebrating the fact that people could drink again, and there really was no other meaning behind booze in the film other than that. One of the minor themes of The Thin Man is definitely the pure, simple joy of alcohol, and the fact that it could be shown on screen. This was pretty much the first year Hollywood could put booze in pictures, and Hollywood was exultant. They wanted to celebrate, and The Thin Man is all about that celebration.
The one-liners in the film are to die for:
"Is that my drink?"
"What are you drinking?"
"Rye."
*takes a huge gulp of her drink*
"Yes, that's yours."
"I read you were shot five times in the tabloids."
"It's not true - he didn't come anywhere near my tabloids."
"Waiter, will you serve the nuts? Oh, I mean, will you serve the guests the nuts?"
"Is your husband working on a case?"
"Yes."
"What case?"
"A case of scotch."
"We're all like that on my father's side."
"By the way, how is your father's side?"
"Oh much better, thanks, and yours?"
The dialogue is terrific, absolutely razor sharp and witty, just like Nick and Nora.
Don't watch The Thin Man for the mystery; watch The Thin Man for the chemistry, the inimitable screen chemistry of William Powell and Myrna Loy (my favorite onscreen couple), for the elegant sophistication, and for the fantastic dialogue.
The Thin Man
1934
Director: W.S. van Dyke
Starring: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Maureen O'Sullivan
Nick and Nora Charles drink a great amount of alcohol and occasionally solve crimes. This is the incredibly simple formula of one of the most entertaining and successful franchises in film history.
Shot, according to legend, in two weeks, MGM treated The Thin Man as a cheap B-movie. They wanted to pair Powell and Loy together after a first successful outing in Manhattan Melodrama, but threw them together into a low-budget, second-rate (or so they thought) picture. Instead, they ended up with one of the biggest blockbusters of 1934, garnering several Oscar nominations along the way, and audiences clamoring for more. Five sequels followed, and Loy and Powell worked together in seven other films. Theirs was an immensely successful screen pairing.
The central mystery of The Thin Man is the disappearance of George Wynant - the "Thin Man" of the title - an inventor-type who is first seen wishing his daughter (O'Sullivan) well on her engagement. Several months later, he is nowhere to be seen, and his greedy relatives and seedy associates are desperate to know where he is so they can mooch some funds off him. Only his daughter is legitimately concerned, and she brings socialites Nick and Nora Charles onto the case.
The opening ten minutes of the film are, I admit, a bit slow. We get the backstory of Wynant and his daughter, then we meet Wynant's mistress, her other boyfriend, his lawyer, and a whole mess of other unsavory characters.
Finally, the movie REALLY begins when we open on a night club scene around Christmas. Most everyone is out on the dance floor, but Nick Charles can't be bothered. Instead, he's dutifully explaining to the bartenders how to properly mix a beverage. Of course he is. Who else would know better than that famous lush Nick Charles? He is funny, charming, and hardly sober.
Then the movie shifts into a higher gear with the entrance of Nora, hidden behind a giant stack of Christmas presents, lead by Asta, their spaniel. She tumbles into the room, falling flat on her face. The gorgeous, elegant, sophisticated Myrna Loy enters a room in her first entrance of the film by falling flat on her face. I LOVE IT!! The two joke a bit, and then we learn just what type of marriage they have. Nora asks Nick how many martinis he's had. Six, he says. All right, she says, and promptly orders six martinis lined up in front of her so she can catch up with her husband.
Their marriage is truly a partnership. Nora matches Nick step for step, quip for quip, and drink for drink. She is enthralled with his sleuthing and INSISTS on getting in on the act. He is not annoyed by this; on the contrary, he seems enamored of his wife because she wants to be involved. The two love each other, they really do love each other. Most movie marriages involve a lazy husband and a nagging wife; this is hardly the case here. The Thin Man paints the portrait of marriage as a union, which, in 1934, was a pretty wild idea. Nick and Nora have an immensely modern marriage, and it makes it so much fun to watch a pair who love and respect one another having so much fun together.
By now, if you haven't seen the movie before, you probably think it's about a bunch of alcoholics. Six martinis? Really?!? There is a LOT of drinking in this film, and it's an issue I must confront. The drinking in The Thin Man is merely superficial; it is not meant to comment on societal ills due to alcohol, or be a heavy-hitting drama about co-dependent alcoholics. Prohibition had been repealed in 1933 and the US was still embroiled in the Great Depression. Hollywood was celebrating the fact that people could drink again, and there really was no other meaning behind booze in the film other than that. One of the minor themes of The Thin Man is definitely the pure, simple joy of alcohol, and the fact that it could be shown on screen. This was pretty much the first year Hollywood could put booze in pictures, and Hollywood was exultant. They wanted to celebrate, and The Thin Man is all about that celebration.
The one-liners in the film are to die for:
"Is that my drink?"
"What are you drinking?"
"Rye."
*takes a huge gulp of her drink*
"Yes, that's yours."
"I read you were shot five times in the tabloids."
"It's not true - he didn't come anywhere near my tabloids."
"Waiter, will you serve the nuts? Oh, I mean, will you serve the guests the nuts?"
"Is your husband working on a case?"
"Yes."
"What case?"
"A case of scotch."
"We're all like that on my father's side."
"By the way, how is your father's side?"
"Oh much better, thanks, and yours?"
The dialogue is terrific, absolutely razor sharp and witty, just like Nick and Nora.
Don't watch The Thin Man for the mystery; watch The Thin Man for the chemistry, the inimitable screen chemistry of William Powell and Myrna Loy (my favorite onscreen couple), for the elegant sophistication, and for the fantastic dialogue.