La sombra del acusado

Another good series entry [4/6], more sedate than its predecessors but still a quality funny whodunnit, again set in Red Herring City.

Nick finds himself embroiled in a murder case after a racetrack killing leads to another implicating an "obviously" decent guy, trying to unravel the murderer from a long list of "guilty" suspects. Nick's deductions again spring a surprise, culminating with a detail only discovered near the end of the picture. The funniest scene is the outbreak of fisticuffs in the restaurant - I'm glad I never got a dog, cute as Asta was! Again Nick Jr. was sidelined for the second half, probably so as not to complicate the plot further. Donna Reed's second film.

With a beautiful print and the chorus of "Why, It's Nick Charles!" ringing in my ears I found this one to be almost up to par with the first three and one I certainly hope to watch again.

Anything with William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles starts out at a six out of ten absent anything else positive in the film. I didn't think that this was one of the best of the series, with nothing outpacing the original Thin Man. There was too much baby in the last one and too much little kid in this one. Look, I wouldn't appreciate Sherlock Holmes, Perry Mason, OR Nick Charles showing up in a family drama like "I Remember Mama" and I didn't appreciate the intrusion of all of the little kid schtick in this, what is supposed to be a detective film/comedy. Maybe it is just the conformist view of the pre-war production code era, or maybe it is just that Irving Thalberg had been dead since 1936 and five years later Louis B. Mayer's sickly sweet sentimentalism was starting to really take hold at MGM.

At least Woody Van Dyke is still in the director's chair, and Sam Levene makes a great side kick for Nick as police lieutenant Abrams who couldn't detect his way out of a paper bag without the help of Mr. Charles. Nick takes pity on the fellow and tries to give him credit where he can.

This mystery is about two murders - one at a race track and another in the office of the head of a gambling syndicate, seemingly unrelated. Another problem I have in this film - the guy in the "young couple" who Nick and Nora are trying to help is played by Barry Nelson, who easily has the most punchable face in the history of film. Even when he is out cold he looks like he is obnoxiously smirking.

Some of the weirder sights in this one? Nick walking his son on a leash, and his son - all of four - in a soldier's uniform! Also a San Francisco seafood restaurant which is not upscale but not greasy spoon level either has a dirt floor!

I'd recommend it for fans of the Thin Man films. There is enough Nick and Nora to overcome its several flaws.

Caught this again in a TCM triple feature of Thin Man movies. Even I'm not old enough to have seen these in the theater, but I saw them before as a youth when all of these movies were dumped by Hollywood onto the small screen in the Fifties and Sixties. They have aged very well. Myrna Loy is beautiful and wonderful as perhaps the prototypical smart Aleck and generally competent wife and partner. Her money obviously allows her husband William Powell to be the wise cracking, hard drinking playboy detective in the series start. She's a good influence and he turns into a more acceptable father type by the series end. The movies are all well written, directed and filled with plenty of great 'character actors'. Plot and character driven with nothing a modern audience would perceive as a 'special effect', they're also good detective stories. There's always the gathering of the suspects and the review of the clues at the end where in the less litigious '30s and '40s the killer always confesses. Highly recommended as light comedy and drama.

SHADOW OF THE THIN MAN offers nothing really new but it does offer exactly what fans of the franchise expect. Nick and Nora get dragged into another murder mystery. They continue to bicker in their loving way. Nick and all his old street contacts help Nick do what the police cannot. Lt. Abrams (Sam Levene) last seen in AFTER THE THIN MAN returns. He is to Nick what Inspector Lestrad is to Sherlock Holmes. It's a treat to see a young Donna Reed in a film 5 years prior to her breakthrough performance in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE and 2 decades prior to her self named sitcom.

As usual, Nick with Nora's help rounds up all the suspects and walks the viewer through his deductive reasoning and then announces who the killer is. As this was the third sequel it is plain to see the basic formula that is present in all the THIN MAN films. It, by this film, had become about as complex as a color by numbers coloring book. Little imagination but still fun to do. I would rank this my fourth favorite of the six THIN MAN FILMS.

This fourth of the six Thin Man movies is one of the most fun, most enjoyable. Powell and Loy are terrific, as always, and Donna Reed is beautiful in an early role. But it's Sam Levine as police Lt Abrams who steals the show. It's murder at the race track. Who killed the jockey? See it and find out. And enjoy!