THE THIN MAN Murder, Mirth and Marriage  At The Movies

     Although MGM was anxious to keep the series going, plans were put on hold as Loy had married John Hertz, Jr. of the rental car fortune, and had moved to New York City where she devoted herself to the Red Cross and helping with war bond drives. MGM would make occasional announcements that they were going to cast another actress like Irene Dunn in the part of Nora, but most people view this as a ploy to get Loy back at the studio. Finally, with her marriage to Hertz on the rocks, she was willing to make a quick return to MGM for The Thin Man Comes Home.

     When Powell learned that Loy would be arriving in Pasadena by train, he borrowed the dog who played Asta and went to the station to meet her. As she stepped off of the train, Powell quipped that he was just arriving from Palm Springs and that it was an awful nice gesture for Loy to have traveled 3,000 miles to meet him at the station.

     The reception that greeted Loy at MGM’s stage 9 was also warm with big signs stating “Welcome Home, Myrna” and “Don’t Leave Us Again, Myrna” hung inside. Shooting ran from May 8 to July 14, 1044.

     Richard Thorpe had taken over the directional chores for this installment of the series. (Norman Taurog goes uncredited as the director of some reshoots that were done for the picture in August and September of 1944. Thorpe was unavailable, as he had already started on his next picture Thrill of a Romance.) Harry Kurnitz once again supplied the story, though this time it was adapted by Dwight Taylor and Robert Riskin. Riskin’s brother Everett Riskin took for production duties from the departed Stromberg. 

     In this outing Nick takes Nora to vacation at his parents home in the small town of Sycamore Springs. While all Nick wants to do is relax, the town is soon abuzz that the famous detective has arrived and may be working on a case. When a young artist is shot on his parent’s front porch while asking him for help, Nick has no choice but to start investigating some of the mysterious goings-on around the seemingly sleepy little town. In a nod to wartime liquor rationing, there is a subplot concerning Nick giving up drinking as his father disapproves of such things.

A Charles family portrait with (left to right) Harry Davenport, Lucile Watson, Myrna Loy and William Powell

     Harry Davenport and Lucile Watson are Nick’s parents, Dr. and Mrs. Bertram Charles. Edward Brophy, gangster Morelli from the first film is back, but this time as a traveling salesman named Brogan who seems to be more than he appears to be. Also in the cast are veteran comic actor Donald Meek as the proprietor of an art supply store and an unbilled appearance by Edward Gargan who had a reoccurring role as Detective Bates in the Falcon series at RKO. The film was released on 1/25/45.

     The series wound to a close in 1947 release of Song of the Thin Man, with Nick and Nora investigating the murder of a nighclub musician. While 13 years earlier Nick and Nora were the toast of the Manhattan nightlife, they now seem somewhat confused and bemused by the current jazz club scene. Nat Perrin and Steve Fischer’s script (with additional dialog from Harry Crane and James O’Hanlon) is functional, but the film is carried strictly by the force of Powell and Loy’s screen presence.

     The cast for this last Thin Man film would feature comic Keenan Wynn as Clarence “Clinker” Krause, Jayne Meadows as Janet Thayer and a young Dean Stockwell as Nick, Jr.

     While the box office receipts for Song were good, they weren’t up to the levels of the series’ previous entries, so MGM decided to discontinue the series. As Loy wrote in Being and Becoming, “The characters had lost their sparkle for Bill and me, and the people who knew what it was all about were no longer involved. Woody Van Dyke was dead. Dashiell Hammett and Hunt Stromberg had gone elsewhere. The Hacketts were writing other things.”

     Song of the Thin Man also turned out to be the last “official” screen pairing between Powell and Loy. Loy would reappear in a cameo in The Senator Was Indiscreet as Powell’s character’s oft-mentioned-but-not-seen-until-the-end-of-the-film wife.

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