The Thin Man is a romantic comedy about a married couple that loves to Banter at each other; All wrapped up in a murder mystery.
Now that might sound like a strange thing to say given that the entire movie is a giant set up for a murder.
But some much of this movie isn't spent around the murder itself.
It site around our two main characters Nick and Nora who're just living their life and having comedic little moments with each other. Rather it's making faces, making fun of each others alcoholism* pretending to have affairs with other people or just screwing around sitting on a couch shooting a BB gun at a Christmas tree full of balloons.
Which means we get an odd aspect to the murder mystery. It most traditional films we either follow the family of the victim / murderer or we follow the proper investigator. The guy leading the case. But our main stars in this movie is only half interested in what's going on.
They have a slight personal connection to the man that the murders are centred around and they have a vague knowledge of the case itself, but our protagonist isn't all that interested.
At first he wants nothing to do with it.
He just wants to sit around his house in New York and enjoy his Christmas party as he invites countless number of guests who become the most entertaining sort when intoxicated.
Heck, the only reason he even gets involved in the case is because everyone else keeps pressuring him into it.
Rather it be harassing him at his party for info on the case. Trying to hire him to do the investigation himself.
Or one strange event a man coming to his house in the dead of night, pointing a gun in his face. Demanding that he either drop the case or drop the man in question from the investigation; Claiming that he wasn't the murderer. All under the influence that the man he's attempting to kill has any interest in the case to begin with.
This leads to all kinds of comedic mishaps. Where in Nick get semi involved because of strange circumstances revolving around himself.
Like this one girl coming to him with a pistol, claiming that she's the murderer out of some strange sense of guilt.
He takes the pistol from her, sticks in one of he's drawers and then later it's found out by the cops when they do a mandatory investigation of his house after that one guy tried shooting him from earlier.
Now they think he's involved in the murder and they're stuck with this weapon that has no actual connection to the events in the film.
So instead of the movie becoming more and more clear as time goes on, it just gets more complicated.
Until we end up at the very end of the film where the entire case is so convoluted and Confused that they have the old sit down dinner table scene.
The dinner scene is a strange event where Nick and Nora are somehow able to convince the police department to bring in every single suspect of the case so they can all sit down in a massive dinner table and Nick's to go off on a big grandiose speech about everything he's learned in the case.
And via the power of deduction, fear, confusion and anger. He'll be able to stress out which one of the people happens to be the culprit.
In a more serious criminal mystery movie this would be seen as a poor substitute for an actual interesting twist or good communicated storytelling.
But in a more comedic film it just adds to the charm.
We get to see everybody sitting together and reacting off of everyone else's cookie quarks.
The strange thing about this movie is you only feel like you know half the story. Even when you get to the very end and you figure out who the culprit(s) is.
You're still sitting there thinking; ''Well what happened with this angle or that angle?
Why did the Thin Man leave on a secret trip?
What exactly happened to the Thin Man (on the trip- did he evan get there?)
What was the machine he was working on?
There's so many unanswered little questions which admittedly would have just bogs down the film if they attempted to answer. But a part of me almost wishes they had a second movie focusing on the other aspects of the film.
I don't think it would have been any good but that's the beauty of theoretical thinking. You don't have to take reality into consideration.
Conclusion: An overall enjoyable comedic mystery film. With just enough difference in camera work to keep your Eye entertained. Mixed in with fairly solid writing and fantastic Chemistry Between William Powell and Myrna Loy.
They're the two real people who make this movie.
The performance by Edward Ellis is pretty good as well**. I wish he had a bit more screen time, but what are you going to do.
*I swear William Powell is drinking something at every point in this movie. The only time when I don't see him trying to have a drink is when he goes on his one investigation into the old Workshop where the supposed ''Thin Man'' lived.
Comments
Post a Comment