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The Thin Man

The Thin Man on DVD

William Powell and Myrna Loy are wonderfully charming as husband and wife team Nick and Nora Charles in this first of six Thin Man movies.

Nick used to be a well-known and well-respected sleuth, but it appears he’s now a man of leisure since his wife inherited piles of money. Despite that, on a trip to New York just about everyone else in the cast (including his wife) wants to drag him into a missing person case that balloons into murder.

Nick’s reluctant, even though he always seems to be a step or two ahead of everyone else involved in the case, including the police. No, he’s more interested in his boozy life of leisure, in being the affable and urbane host than in reprising his past career regardless of who eggs him on.

Naturally, he does get involved when the case takes on a more personal aspect and, naturally, he solves it - at a dinner party he hosts that he hopes will be conducive to the murderer revealing him or herself.

Incidentally, the Thin Man of the title isn’t Nick, oddly enough considering that all the movies use “Thin Man” in their title. Instead, the Thin Man is the missing scientist Nick is supposed to find.

Anyway, this is a terrific movie! Powell and Loy have incredible chemistry; they come across as a married couple who truly love each other and are secure enough in their relationship to make each other the butt of their humor and practical jokes. If they weren’t an item off screen as well (we have no idea), they probably should have been because they work so well together.

Powell and Loy’s dialogue is sparkling (it’s a wonderfully written screenplay all around, adapted from a novel by Dashiell Hammett), the cast is uniformly wonderful and the story will keep you laughing and guessing right till the end.

We can understand why this movie was such as success that it spawned the sequels After the Thin Man (featuring a young James Stewart), Another Thin Man, Shadow of the Thin Man, The Thin Man Goes Home, and Song of the Thin Man. Trailers for all of these films are on the DVD - and now we want to see every one of them.

The DVD is very good. The black and white picture is presented in its original “narrowscreen” (4x3) aspect ratio and the picture is very good, with excellent contrast and good sharpness. Remember, however, that owners of 16x9 aspect ratio TV’s will have to stretch and/or zoom the picture to fit their screens. This is an acceptable compromise, however, since the film hasn’t been Panned&Scanned and therefore you won’t lose anything from the edges.

Audio, not surprisingly, is Dolby Digital mono and is unremarkable.

Extras include the aforementioned trailers.

The Thin Man, from Warner Home Video
91 min. original 4x3 full screen (not 16x9 TV compatible), Dolby Digital mono
Starring William Powell, Myrna Loy, Maureen O’Sullivan, Nat Pendleton, Minna Gombell
Produced by Hunt Stromberg
Written by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich, directed by W.S. Van Dyke

 

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Updated May 5, 2010