After the Thin Man (1936)

(On DVD, November 2021) Nick and Norah Charles are back for more married-couple high society sleuthing in After the Thin Man, this time going to their hometown of San Francisco for witty repartee and dead bodies. Their triumphant return home is marked by a welcome party they haven’t asked for and, in fact, flee whenever they have the chance. Murder soon follows. As was the case in the first film, the chemistry between William Powell and Myrna Loy (as the very charming married couple trading quips and tracking down killers) is far more interesting than the nuts and bolts of the investigation. Whenever the plot gets going, viewers will wonder when the comedy will get back on track. Still, there are a few noteworthy things about the non-funny scenes: James Stewart is the biggest of them, as his turn as a young romantic premier becomes something quite atypical in his filmography—enough so to make some of his fans very uneasy. Still, it’s Powell and Loy who are the stars here, and the final sequence, in which the usual suspects are brought together, works more on Powell’s pure charm than his deductive talents. Twenty-first century viewers may be particularly interested in the character played by William Law, a rare Asian actor in a cast of Caucasians — and while his role is clearly racist, it eventually ends up portrayed in a somewhat interesting light. As a follow-up to the first The Thin Man, it clearly hits upon the same notes (albeit tempered by the then-recent introduction of the Hays Code) and provides most of the same thrills — namely the comic romance rather than the crime mystery.