The stars (1962)

and WILLIAM POWELL To begin with, William Powell was not The Thin Man. The Thin Man was a mysterious stranger who held the key to the mystery in the first film of the series in 1934. Through the years M-G-M tried vainly to explain this nice distinction to the fans of Nick and Nora Charles, but finally gave up, and Powell, who was many things, but never exactly slender, was forever identified as a character he was not. Otherwise, The Thin Man series was a resounding success, providing Americans with a new — and not unhealthy — conception of the perfect marriage. The idea of turning Dashiell Hammett's comic detective story into a movie was exclusively that of W. S. (Woody) Van Dyke, long-term Hollywood character, a director with an unerring ability to turn out any kind of film, under any conditions, on time and under budget. Known as "One Take" Van Dyke, he was a valuable craftsman. Unhindered by temperament or artistic pretensions, he made, within the severe limits of the commercial formula, any number of first-rate films. Among the critics, only Manny Farber has paid tribute to those unsung directors— Howard Hawks, William Wellman, William Keighley, Anthony Mann, ValLewton — who created the "underground" film. This was the ordinary little picture made solely to meet the need for a steady flow of film into the theaters, to which, so long as it did not slow down the production line, the front office paid no censorious heed. Their creators stressed fast action, snappy dialogue, clean-cut, unfancy film making and, in the process, achieved not only freedom of expression but a uniquely American-type movie. The Thin Man was a film in this category and, at his best, Woody Van Dyke was an outstanding underground operative. He found Hammett's book lying around unused in the story department and bludgeoned the front office into letting him make it on a B-picture budget and schedule (sixteen days ) . More important, he talked the studio into letting him try Powell and Myrna Loy in the leading roles. Both had been in movies for some time — Powell, an undefined sophisticate, was then making the Philo Vance detective series at another studio; Miss Loy was shuttling between parts as an Oriental siren and as a domestic bad girl. Together they created an image of mariage a la mode which many couples, all unknowing, are still imitating. Independently wealthy, Nick Charles affected a kind of mocking indolence, tended to drink too much and sometimes, in his amiable pursuit of clues, to lose sight of the forest for the trees. He did the big thinking for the pair, but Nora had a shrewd eye for the telling detail and a deliciously wifely way of bringing him down to earth. Nick treated her with indulgent whimsy, pretending to think of her as a scatterbrain, a mannerism which both seemed to know was a necessary indulgence of his male vanity. Theirs was the best cinematic representation of the workings of the modern male and female intelligences, how they clash and how they mesh. In the context of detection these qualities were thrown into high relief, and the wit and style of the films, though glossier than life, made them enormously entertaining figures in a depression-plagued world that was particularly hard on the institution of marriage. Nick and Nora reassured us that cohabitation can be fun. The Thin Man. Left, Nick and Nora Charles engaged in favorite occupations; he is drinking, she is making a wisecrack. Above, a phony but useful faint. 127