By Coral Gables Gazette staff
There is a version of The Thin Man that could be described as a mystery — a retired detective and his wealthy wife are drawn into the disappearance of an eccentric inventor, who turns out to be connected to a murder. But that description misses nearly everything that made the 1934 film one of the most beloved comedies Hollywood ever produced, and one whose pleasures have not dimmed in the nine decades since.
The Coral Gables Branch Library screens the film as part of its Silver Screen Mornings series on Wednesday, May 27, from 10 a.m. to noon. Admission is free and open to adults 18 and older.
A couple, a case and a great deal of gin
William Powell plays Nick Charles, a former San Francisco detective who retired when he married Nora, a wealthy heiress played by Myrna Loy. The couple is vacationing in New York for the holidays when an old acquaintance draws them into a case involving her missing father — an eccentric inventor named Clyde Wynant, whose disappearance soon becomes entangled in murder. Nick is reluctant; Nora is delighted; the drinks keep arriving.
The film does provide clues, suspects, and a resolution — delivered with characteristic flair at a dinner party where Nick has arranged for all the suspects to attend, with plainclothes police serving as the waitstaff — but the murder plot is, in Hitchcock’s term, a MacGuffin. What The Thin Man is actually about is the pleasure of watching two people who are deeply and playfully in love navigate the world with wit, style, and a very well-stocked liquor cabinet. When a reporter asks Nick what he can share about the case, his reply is immediate: it’s putting him way behind in his drinking.
Nick Charles drinks steadily throughout the film, with a kind of capacity and wit that real drunks fondly hope to master. When Nora finds him at a bar and learns he’s had five martinis, she promptly orders five more to catch up. The drinking is not incidental — it is the lubricant for dialogue of elegant wit and wicked timing, and it gives Powell’s performance its particular texture: a lyrical, subtly unsteady quality that waxes and wanes without ever toppling into actual inebriation.
Powell, Loy, and the chemistry that made a franchise
Powell’s performance remains one of the most precisely calibrated in American screen comedy. His Nick Charles is decadent on the surface — avoiding effort wherever possible, wearing his elegance like a second suit — but genuinely brave and quietly brilliant when the situation demands it. His delivery is so knowing, so droll, that it hardly matters what the lines actually say. The character is smart enough to solve any case and relaxed enough to pretend otherwise for as long as possible.
Myrna Loy matches him in every scene, and the chemistry between them feels not performed but inhabited. Nora is not merely a foil; she is a full participant in the comedy, alive to every absurdity and more than willing to needle her husband into action. Their wire-haired fox terrier Asta, played by a canine actor named Skippy, became one of the most famous animal performers of his era — alert, expressive, and frequently more useful to the investigation than his owners.
The supporting cast includes Maureen O’Sullivan as the inventor’s worried daughter and a young Cesar Romero as a gold-digging suspect. The plot, as Nick would be the first to admit, is largely preposterous. Its pleasures lie less in procedural logic than in atmosphere, timing and performance.
A B-picture that became a classic
The Thin Man was shot in two weeks on a modest budget — Powell and Loy had appeared together earlier that year in Manhattan Melodrama, and MGM moved quickly to pair them again in this crime comedy adapted from Dashiell Hammett’s novel. The speed and economy of the production are invisible on screen. The interiors are simple and elegant, the black-and-white photography flatters everyone in the cast, and director W.S. Van Dyke kept the pace tight without sacrificing a single line reading.
The film earned four Academy Award nominations — best picture, actor, director, and screenplay — and became one of the most popular releases of 1934. It spawned five sequels, a radio series, and a television adaptation. Powell was nominated for the Oscar three times across his career, for this film, My Man Godfrey, and Life with Father. He never won. He lived until 1984, healthy and active into his final years, and the Academy never remedied the oversight. To watch The Thin Man is to understand what was missed.
About the series
Silver Screen Mornings is an ongoing free program at the Coral Gables Branch Library presenting classic films on Wednesday mornings for adult audiences. The series has featured titles ranging across the full span of Hollywood’s golden era, from film noir to drawing-room comedy to the Western. The Thin Man fits the series well: it is a film that rewards an audience willing to set aside the murder plot and simply watch two exceptionally gifted performers work.
The screening runs 93 minutes. For information or accessibility accommodations, contact the branch at 305-442-8706 or capleybr@mdpls.org. The Coral Gables Branch Library is located at 3443 Miracle Mile.
