The Thin Man Goes Home

The Thin Man Goes Home (1945)

Runtime: 101 minutes

Directed by: Richard Thorpe

Starring: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Lucile Watson, Harry Davenport, Gloria DeHaven

From: MGM

Yes, I changed my mind and I actually only watched this last night; why did I do this? I explained it all in the Letterboxd review I have below but basically it's “audience fatigue” with me. I will eventually watch that last movie in the series but it will be sometime next year. I'll be back tomorrow night but for now, the Letterboxd review:

It looks like I will have to be different from the norm in that I am not as big a fan of this as many seem to be. I will explain.

In this entry things are noticeably different. The director was not the same from the first four (W.S. Van Dyke, who unfortunately had passed away) and I don't know if that was the main reason or not but it isn't the same old same old. Trying to freshen the formula is one thing; when Nick and Nora seem like entirely different characters more often than not... Nick spanking his wife in front of his parents and then dad making a joke about domestic violence? What is this?

The plot is that Nick & Nora (the kid is written out with the excuse that he's “at school”, which is fine by me) go to Nick's old bucolic hometown to visit his parents; father-a doctor-and son don't always see eye to eye for various reasons. As joked about in the movie, murder seems to follow the couple and indeed that's what happens. This case involves such things as paintings, a fancy ball (as in a party at a ballroom), and people snooping around in bushes. It does in fact end the same as the previous four, something that was joked about in a meta way; I don't think the odd editing in the climax was a meta thing too, though.

Like I said the two leads don't seem the same as the characters you've seen in the previous films; they come across as clowns too often and there was definitely plenty of comedy... not all of which works. The story and the mystery also comes across as slight compared to the previous four, even if the family stuff was a nice idea and did provide some decent moments. Personally I don't rate it as high as many others, although I still say that it's average overall and your mileage may vary. At least there is some amusing physical humor and Loy does get more to do than the past few movies. The charm of those two is a big help.

I just wouldn't have minded if-for example-they went more in-depth on the idea of that idyllic little town actually holding many dark secrets and they don't like an outsider snooping about; they only skimmed the surface there and it wasn't a harsh look like you'd expect from, say, Hitchcock.

Anyhow, I was thinking about also watching the last film in the series-Song of the Thin Man-but I'll wait to do that until sometime next year; maybe watching all the sequels in a few days wasn't the best idea, even if overall the series I would still rate pretty highly.