The third entry in
The Thin Man series is an excellent comedy-mystery. While it may not live up to the first movie (not that that is an insult in the slightest), it is very entertaining in its own right. I was lucky enough to see this movie at
The Old Town Music Hall last night and seeing this with an audience proved to me how delightful this film truly is, as everybody was enjoying it just as much as I was.
This film's production was plagued by health problems for star William Powell. Filming was meant to start in early 1938, but before any filming could be done, Powell was too obviously having health problems. These health problems were later revealed to be cancer. This was a tough time for Powell in general. As if having cancer weren't bad enough, he had also recently lost his wife, actress Jean Harlow a year earlier and hadn't quite emotionally recovered yet. Powell would have operations in March 1938 and January 1939, and with the success of these he would be able to return to work in fall of 1939. Meanwhile he had to turn down some great movie roles including that of Maxim De Winter in Alfred Hitchcock's
Rebecca (1940). When Powell arrived for the first day of filming, he received a standing ovation from the cast and crew, which embarrassed him quite a bit. Director Woody Van Dyke (who had also directed the previous two
Thin Man movies) broke up this scene by stating "what are we wasting time for? Let's get to work." Van Dyke was known for making movies extremely quickly, but he did make allowances for Powell's health with this film. Filming would only last six hours a day and crews would be doubled to compensate. Still in typical W.S. Van Dyke fashion the film was finished rather quickly and was released in November of 1939.
Another Thin Man marked the last
Thin Man movie to be written by husband-and-wife team Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett (this is a rare
Thin Man sequel to be based off an actual story by Dashiell Hammett (who wrote the original novel) (this was a short story entitled
The Farewell Murder). Myrna Loy would later give the reason for this in her autobiography
Being and Becoming stating "Do you know I never saw them at Metro? It's terrible, really, but unless they sent for the writers to get us out of a hole, we seldom saw them on the set.... I didn't meet the Hacketts until I moved to New York in the fifties. We became friends, I'm happy to say, and Albert facetiously explained one day why they didn't write the last three Thin Man pictures: 'Finally I just threw up on my typewriter. I couldn't do it again; I couldn't write another one.' Perhaps we all should have concurred; those last three never really touched the previous ones." Truth be told when you compare these first three movies to the last three, there is no doubt the ones written by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett are well above the later entries. While I enjoy the later films, they lack the clever and laugh out loud funny banter between Nick and Nora that these first three have. While maybe not as memorable or quotable as the first movie, the dialogue in
Another Thin Man is still full of the charm and wit that one could want from a
Thin Man movie. This film is just as funny today as it was in 1939. Adding to the delightful of this banter is that William Powell and Myrna Loy have lost none of their amazing chemistry. They still play off each other perfectly and a scene in a club is a sheer delight to behold.
As did many of these sequels this movie features more slapstick involving the dog Asta (who gets the largest billing in the opening credits) than the first entry. This is hardly a problem when the slapstick is as funny as it is here. There are plenty of times when Asta steals the show, which considering the cast of this movie is no easy feat. This movie also introduced a new character, Nick and Nora's son Nick Jr. (William A. Paulson). Nick Jr. has somewhat of a baring on this movie's story but rarely provides any comedy himself, letting his adult and canine costars run the whole show. This is probably for the best. One watches
The Thin Man movies for the banter between Nick and Nora Charles, not for antics from a baby, and such antics could have hurt a thing that was already working.
When released this film became one of the highest grossing movies of its year and it should come as no surprise that more sequels would be in the future.
While none of these sequels quite reach the level of the first movie,
Another Thin Man stands as my second favorite in the series and never fails to delight me.
Also Stooges fans should look for Shemp in a brief uncredited role.
A hit movie never failed to send MGM to be tooting their own horn as can be seen by the advertisement from The Film Daily below or the advertisement from The Motion Picture Herald below that.
I love the way movie theatres advertised films back in the day and some excellent examples of that (including one for
After The Thin Man) can be seen in the below two pages from The Motion Picture Herald. If you having trouble reading just click on the picture and use your touch screen to zoom in.
-Michael J. Ruhland
Resources Used
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/1747/Another-Thin-Man/articles.html
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031047/?ref_=hm_rvi_tt
