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The Thin Man (1934) N
A crime comedy that delivers solid performance on one of its genres while somewhat failing the other.
A business man / inventor disappears and becomes prime suspect for multiple murders. His daughter seeks help from a retired detective who's helped her father in the past. Reluctantly the heavy drinking ex-cop becomes involved with the case.
The crime story in the film is quite weak. There's not enough time to intelligently build it and it seems to advance by big leaps whenever there's nothing more important happening on screen. I don't think there's any chance to build proper motives for characters and guess the killer before it's revealed. Maybe they should have cut few characters from the film version.
If the crime side of the story is lackluster the comedy side works rather well and I had more laughs than the whole first 1930s HoF combined. Much of the credit goes to Powell and Loy who have amazing chemistry and especially Powell's drunkard ex-detective is genuinely funny character. There are funny moments outside the heroic couple (like some of Gilbert's almost insane ramblings) but they're the force that holds the film together.
Visually there's nothing special but it's not really that kind of film anyway. Script is half good, half bad and it's kinda shame that the crime part of the story is so lazily written that it drags the film down. Acting was solid all the way and the leading couple was excellent (even the dog was good). I hope no livers were injured during the filming.
Sloppy crime story with some great comedy. It falls little short of being good but it's definitely alright.
+
A crime comedy that delivers solid performance on one of its genres while somewhat failing the other.
A business man / inventor disappears and becomes prime suspect for multiple murders. His daughter seeks help from a retired detective who's helped her father in the past. Reluctantly the heavy drinking ex-cop becomes involved with the case.
The crime story in the film is quite weak. There's not enough time to intelligently build it and it seems to advance by big leaps whenever there's nothing more important happening on screen. I don't think there's any chance to build proper motives for characters and guess the killer before it's revealed. Maybe they should have cut few characters from the film version.
If the crime side of the story is lackluster the comedy side works rather well and I had more laughs than the whole first 1930s HoF combined. Much of the credit goes to Powell and Loy who have amazing chemistry and especially Powell's drunkard ex-detective is genuinely funny character. There are funny moments outside the heroic couple (like some of Gilbert's almost insane ramblings) but they're the force that holds the film together.
Visually there's nothing special but it's not really that kind of film anyway. Script is half good, half bad and it's kinda shame that the crime part of the story is so lazily written that it drags the film down. Acting was solid all the way and the leading couple was excellent (even the dog was good). I hope no livers were injured during the filming.
Sloppy crime story with some great comedy. It falls little short of being good but it's definitely alright.
+