When The Thin Man Was Fat -With The Original Film Adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man In Mind   

By Film Critic Emeritus Sam Lowell

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, 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. I mentioned above all that the affable Nick and Nora would get involved in the murder case of a jockey who allegedly threw a horse race. The very notion that anybody, much less a private eye, would give more than a passing glance to the demise an allegedly corrupt jockey was beyond me. After all the indignities those curs have thrown my way whenever I have had a “sure thing” has given me a very cynical view of these professionals. Has left me teary eyed at my bad luck-or ready to shot one myself. Of course if you are talking about throwing horse races then you have to deal with the question of the mob and all the connections to that organization from law enforcement to track officials. And in a roundabout way this is how Nick with a little timely intervention by Nora solved that one thereby exonerating that fallen jockey (and a newspaper guy too). Bringing a high-born connected guy down to boot. Enough said.

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).     

Of course even then Nick had been softened up a little by some time out in gentle, gentile Frisco town by once he hit New York he put on his stern working face when the daughter of an ex-client attempted to find out where her father had taken off too. Taken off after a couple of murders fouled up the scene. See that old man, that thin man, had been running around with a dizzy dame who was two-timing him and so all eyes pointed in his absent direction. Only got more heated when a guy who saw the murderer got wasted by same.  Looked like the old man would take the big step-off, take a last breathe that he would not like.

Except in those days although Nick was allegedly “retired” kicked out the jams long enough to find out that the whole thing was a scam, was all smoke and mirrors by somebody, not the thin man. Along the way Nick outsmarts the public coppers, not so hard to do when the put their two and two together and it came up five. Two murders and a missing boyfriend, the old man, and they had him all wrapped up and tied with a ribbon. One little problem: the old man, the thin man, this Wynant to give him a name was dead, very dead and had been so of a couple of months after Nick (okay, okay with a little sniffing help from Asta) so the public coppers had egg all over their faces. You might be surprised by who actually did the deed, did the three murders and would surely take the big step-off, be gasping for breathe at the end, but you can watch the film to see that   worked out. What is important is that Nick, drunk or sober, dapper or not, seemingly lazy or not, too laid back or not grabbed the right person, solved the damn mystery without working up serious sweat. And without getting bopped on the head, or taking some slugs. Enough said.