SHADOW OF THE THIN MAN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 153, 29 May 1942, Page 22

SHADOW OF THE THIN MAN

(M.G M)

E can’t help feeling that there’s something in ~ this heredity business. At any rate this great grandchild of The

Thin Man is much thinner (as far as the plot is concerned anyway) than any of its three forbears, and even the comic efforts of William Powell and Myrna Loy can’t make it put on much weight. To my mind there seemed to be a divorce-no, not between Nick and Nora, who are as. casually uxorious as ever, but between the domestic comedy motive and the crime and detection theme, and there is a sense /of annoyance whenever the film switches from one to the other. It’s really a good thing that one isn’t particularly gripped by the jockey murder and the killing of the blackmailing reporter, or one would be rather annoyed at people. like Myrna Loy holding up the possible discovery of the malefactors while she tries on what every character in the film agrees is a "screwy" hat. Because, of course, it’s only Nick Charles who can solve the murder, and there’s Nora wasting his time by making him take her to a wrestling match. Not

a waste of time from the audience’s point of view, because it was fun to see Nora in her excitement getting a headlock on Nicky while the two 18-stoners squirmed in agony upon the floor, later recovering sufficiently to say "Thank you, Miss," to Nora’s drawled "Hope you get out of it all right." I could watch this sort of thing for quite a long time, if it weren’t for the fact that by this time there are at least two corpses and nothing’s been done about either of them. It isn’t as if the police can do anything, because they’re in charge of a Lieutenant Something who evidently entered the police force because his I.Q. was too low for him to be welcomed in criminal circles. Well, at last Nick gets going and solves everything in less time (considerably less time) than it takes him to swallow a glass of milk, and lands his suspect plonk in the middle of a room full of other suspects who are as surprised as the audience at this unexpected dénouement, because neither the characters nor the audience have seen much of the unfortunate gentleman before, and anyway he looks so harmless. But of course this isn’t the grand climax. The grand climax comes when the innocent-looking suspect turns nasty and the faithful Nora flings herself in front of Nick to receive the fatal -bullet himself. But it isn’t fatal-in fact it isn’t even a bullet-so there’s a lovely fade-out of Mr. and Mrs, Thin Man, both unharmed, and I have a feeling they’ve been left this way on purpose and that we'll be seeing them shortly in M.G.M.’s "The Thin Man’s Shadow Returns." But I rather hope I’m wrong.