Shadow of the Thin Man (1941)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

W.S. Van Dyke

Writers:

Dashiell Hammett (characters)
Harry Kurnitz (story)

Release Date:

November 1941 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance | Drama | Mystery | Crime

Tagline:

Hey everybody, my folks are back on the trail of the dog-gondest mystery you ever saw! They're Wackier Than Ever!

Plot:

Nick and Nora are at their wise-cracking best as they investigate murder and racketeering at a local race-track.

Plot Keywords:

Jockey | Nick And Nora Charles | Murder | Debt | Detective

Cast

William Powell	...	Nick
Myrna Loy	...	Nora
Barry Nelson	...	Paul Clarke - reporter
Donna Reed	...	Molly - Stephens' receptionist
Sam Levene	...	Lieutenant Abrams
Alan Baxter	...	'Whitey' Barrow
Henry O'Neill	...	Major Jason I. Sculley
Richard Hall	...	Nick, Jr. (as Dickie Hall)
Stella Adler	...	Claire Porter / Clara Peters
Loring Smith	...	'Link' Stephens - Gambling syndicate boss
Joseph Anthony	...	Fred Macy - Stephens' deputy
Lou Lubin	...	'Rainbow' Benny
Louise Beavers	...	Stella
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Aldrich Bowker	...	Watchman (scenes deleted)

Runtime:

97 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

UK:A (original rating) | UK:PG (DVD rating) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved (PCA #7707)

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

Debut of Barry Nelson.

Goofs:

Errors in geography: Bringing back Sam Levine as Lt. Abrams of the San Francisco PD from AFTER THE THIN MAN is a welcome addition to the cast. However, a San Francisco homicide detective wouldn't have had jurisdiction at the racetrack. The only possible area horse racetrack would have been Berkeley's Golden Gate Fields (opened 1941), which is well outside the San Francisco city limits and is reached by driving across the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge (where Nick got his speeding ticket and police escort to the track).

Quotes:

Nora Charles: He's getting more like his father everyday.
Estrellita: He sure is. This morning he was playing with a corkscrew.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Hollywood Remembers: Myrna Loy - So Nice to Come Home to (1991) (TV)

Entertaining and funny

Caught this again in a TCM triple feature of Thin Man movies. Even I'm not old enough to have seen these in the theater, but I saw them before as a youth when all of these movies were dumped by Hollywood onto the small screen in the Fifties and Sixties. They have aged very well. Myrna Loy is beautiful and wonderful as perhaps the prototypical smart Aleck and generally competent wife and partner. Her money obviously allows her husband William Powell to be the wise cracking, hard drinking playboy detective in the series start. She's a good influence and he turns into a more acceptable father type by the series end. The movies are all well written, directed and filled with plenty of great 'character actors'. Plot and character driven with nothing a modern audience would perceive as a 'special effect', they're also good detective stories. There's always the gathering of the suspects and the review of the clues at the end where in the less litigious '30s and '40s the killer always confesses. Highly recommended as light comedy and drama.