Shadow of the Thin Man

Nick and Nora Charles go to the races. Nick no longer works as a detective; he drinks, keeps company with his wife and tries to stay out of things. A jockey is found dead at the track. The police call Nick in. He does not want it. Nora does. The investigation reaches into the betting world, a journalist and a club owner. A second killing follows. Meanwhile the couple have a small son and Nick does not know how to explain a horse race to him. W. S. Van Dyke directs. William Powell plays Nick and Myrna Loy plays Nora; Barry Nelson and Donna Reed are in the cast. The source is the characters created by Dashiell Hammett. The film is the fourth link in the Thin Man series, which runs to six. What distinguishes the series is joining crime with marital comedy; while the murder is solved the couple's talk is the real material. Powell and Loy played together in many films of this period and the pairing took a place of its own. There is a dog; Asta is a fixed character in the series and is used in the comic sections. The racing and wrestling sections record the sporting world of the period. The narrative ends in a gathering; all the suspects are brought into one room and the solution given there. Its limit is originality; the shape repeats across the series and the puzzle is weak. Who it is for: viewers who like classic Hollywood crime and the Powell and Loy pairing. Who it is not for: the puzzle is weak, the shape repetitive, and it is not an entry point.