Song of the Thin Man (1947)

[I accidentally deleted the original entry, so here I am, posting it again. The Thin Man Goes Home will be up tomorrow.]

In this series of musings on the Thin Man movies, I thought it’d be best to start at the end, because then I’ll have the superior, earlier movies to discuss last. It’s a form of delayed gratification which no doubt shows how mature I've become. I get talkative when it comes to the Thin Man, so hang on!

They should've called it SWAN Song of the Thin Man.

Song of the Thin Man (1947) is the sixth and final entry in the legendary adventures of husband and wife detectives Nick and Nora Charles. It came three years after the last entry, 1944’s The Thin Man Goes Home.

I don’t like to summarize plots and they’re really not important to my enjoyment of a Nick and Nora epic, but Song of the Thin Man is this: Big Band leader and all-around jerk Tommy Drake is murdered on a ship where his orchestra is playing a charity benefit. Drake was possibly murdered over money (what’s new?). Nick and Nora are there as guests and are pulled into the case when their friend, Phil Brant is named the suspect. Phil and his fiancée Janet (Jane Meadows, later Mrs. Steve Allen) come to the Charles’ swank NYC apartment and after Phil asks Nick if he saw the paper someone takes a shot at Phil, Nick calls the cops ostensibly to keep the “guilty” Phil behind bars, but really so that Phil will be kept safe in prison from future murder attempts. Nick knows that Phil couldn’t have done it, so he’s on the case!

The running gag that doesn’t work for me is how Nick and Nora are portrayed as being out of step with hip big band Jazz musicians and their crazy slang. It just emphasizes how this series has run out of steam. Just to put this in a pop culture context, big band music was taking it on the chin in 1947, as this was during the time when Bebop was leading a musical revolution, even becoming a national fad! Here we had Nick and Nora struggling to comprehend big band Jazz musicians who were already on the decline in terms of popularity. Orchestras were getting smaller because big band leaders like Benny Goodman and Count Basie had to cut costs to keep their operations in circulation. Even the great Duke Ellington had to scale back, and he’d play any gig.

And speaking of music, there’s a catchy song called “You’re Not So Easy to Forget”, which figures in the mystery and gets performed often. In fact it gets played so much that I found myself making up my own lyrics. When you watch the movie and the song comes on, sing the line “You are a moron Tommy Drake” instead of the title and it’ll stay in your head for days. Why you’d want to do that is anyone’s guess, but it amused me…what’s even more amusing is Gloria Grahame, who’s dubbed warbling the tune before her character…well, let’s just say she moves her lips to the song and that GG’s part in this is tragically brief.

That’s what I love about old movies: the cast is often rife with up-and-comers, crafty veterans, and ubiquitous performers whose names you can never remember.



Keenan Wynn plays Clarence “Clinker” Krause, a clarinetist who helps out on the case. I adore Keenan Wynn. Many of us younger weasels remember him as the voice of “Winter” in the Rankin-Bass production of Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town (1970) or the big business tycoon Alonzo Hawk in 1974’s Herbie Rides Again, where Helen Hayes and that Volkswagen bug rip ol’ Keenan a new one. Wynn isn’t blustery like he would become in the 1960s and 70s, so it’s a refreshing change of pace to see him toned down in Thin Man land. I like the Clinker character assisting Nick and Nora, especially when he helps the Charles’ navigate all of that preposterous 1940s slang, but when you can remember those Thin Man films of yore when all Nick needed was a stiff drink and Asta by his side to crack a tricky murder case. But his continued presence is a reminder of something that often happens in TV: give the established leads “help” and “energy” by providing them with a shoehorned-in sidekick or unwanted new character. There’s no policeman as in previous entries, so Clinker fills that role to a degree.




Don Taylor plays tormented clarinetist and composer Buddy Hollis, whose mental health makes Montgomery Clift look as controlled as Klaus Von Bulow. Buddy’s emotional state runs the gamut from screaming lunatic to half-crazed delusional madman. It was against the Production Code to have him an out and out junkie, but he sure acts like one here. Don Taylor would later go on to marry Elizabeth Taylor’s character in 1950’s Father of the Bride.

The beauty quotient in Song is filled by Patricia Morison, whose entire career can be defined by the word “Underused.” Miss Morison is lovely to gaze upon and she gets to have a big scene in this, but her career never materialized as many thought it should. Morison, unlike Gloria Grahame, was a singer, but she doesn’t sing in this film. Another brunette has a small role here, Marie Windsor, whose appearances in several Film Noir thrillers during the late 1940s and early-50s made her a familiar face on screen. You’ll recognize her immediately, though she has nothing to do but look great.

The weakest link in Song of the Thin Man is unfortunately Mrs. Charles herself, Myrna Loy. Yes, it’s sad to admit, but Loy displays none of the energy, mischief, or on-screen charisma that moviegoers loved during the 1930s. She looks a bit older, but none the worse for wear. Gone are the cherubic features of the first two Thin Man films and Loy’s features looks thinner and more angular. However, her appearance is not the problem, but her vacant and tired expressions and lifeless delivery of her lines that gets me. Whereas in previous films her dry wit worked well with her delivery but now it’s as though she were just sleepwalking through the role. Even her character’s motivations have changed. The Nora of the first four films urged Nick to take on the murder cases, but in Song all Nora wants to do is go to bed and get some sleep! Maybe Myrna’s changing public persona as the ideal wife cut into the adventurous spouse of the 1930s. It’s a depressing alteration of identity of one of the 1930s greatest stars.

There’s some effective cinematography and set design here, as the gambling ship has a Film Noir quality about it. MGM did a fine job creating a dark, foggy, and ominous atmosphere. When Nick and Asta sneak aboard the ship for a look, you’d think that you were watching a crime drama from RKO or Universal, not something from high-gloss Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Impressive! It’s the best scene in the entire film, even if it is reminiscent of a similar sequence in Shadow of the Thin Man and the original 1934 film. I also like the set that serves as the Charles’ home. They’re back in New York again, in keeping with the alternating west coast-east coast locales of each movie, excluding The Thin Man Goes Home, which takes place in the Midwest. The Charles place isn’t as great as their smashing art deco digs in After the Thin Man (1936) but there’s a huge skylight in their entry hall that’s worth noting. They still sleep in separate beds, as was the real-life custom of the time--yeah, right!

After the mystery is solved, Nick and Nora return home where this final exchange occurs:

Nick: “Now Nick Charles is going to retire.”

Nora: “You’re through with crime?”

Nick: “No, I’m going to bed.”

Song of the Thin Man isn’t awful. It’s not even sub-par. It’s actually a breezy ninety minutes and if it were any other series with other actors, I’d probably enjoy it even more. But this is The Franchise, The Template for The Husband and Wife Detective genre. If it weren’t for Myrna Loy’s tired performance, this final entry in the series would rate a lot higher, but there’s nothing worse than a disinterested performer in a role they no longer like, and Myrna Loy fits that description here. The Thin Man films succeeded because of the fantastic and witty rapport between Powell and Loy, and we don’t get much of that here. Jon Tuska’s book The Detective in Hollywood even goes so far as to claim that the two stars weren’t even on speaking terms during this time!

I’ll admit that I would’ve preferred William Powell and Dean Stockwell solving the case themselves and leaving Nora at home, since that’s where she wanted to be during the course of Song of the Thin Man. Now isn’t that most un-Nora like?

Look Ma, Squares: The Charles family in its final incarnation.

Gloria Grahame: An Appreciation

I'm not sure when this picture of Gloria Grahame (1923-1981) was taken, but it's probably 1954, when she appeared in two little-known crime dramas: Naked Alibi and Human Desire. She's clearly at the peak of her sex appeal, but the Noir vixen was also at a career peak in 1954.

I'll admit that Gloria Grahame's obvious, physical charms are what initially got me interested in her, but having seen nearly all of her 1950s work, I've come to realize that Grahame's 1950s screen credits compare favorably with many of her better-known contemporaries, including an absolutely stellar year in 1952. It's a shame she isn't better known outside of Film Noir circles, where she's revered. Grahame won me over with her onscreen vulnerability, her likability--even when she plays a truly awful character-- and with a voice like no other. She invariably enlivens any scene she's in and makes watching Noir all the more exciting.

The 1950s proved to be an impressive decade for the actress, who began making her presence known in 1946 with her role as Violet in It's a Wonderful Life. She made a bigger impression playing a b-girl in 1947's Crossfire. The role earned the 24-year-old her first Oscar nomination. Grahame would begin the 1950s in Nicholas Ray's haunting In a Lonely Place, one of the director's best films and Grahame's rendering of the film's last lines is one of the most effective moments in all of Film Noir: "I lived a few weeks while you loved me." Ray and Grahame later married, but that union was destroyed when Grahame began an affair with Ray's 13 year-old son from a previous marriage.

"I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me."

1952 would prove to be Gloria Grahame's finest year. She won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for The Bad & the Beautiful, playing a flighty southern belle who cheats on her screenwriter husband. Grahame was Jack Palance's conniving girlfriend in Sudden Fear, co-starring Joan Crawford. Grahame further added to her credentials with her appearance in the year's Best Picture winner, The Greatest Show On Earth. Another iconic crime drama, 1953's The Big Heat, showcased Grahame as a spurned gangster's moll. In 1955, she would be absolutely charming as "Ado Annie" in the otherwise bloated film adaptation of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma! Grahame ended the decade with an odd but memorable part in 1959's Odds Against Tomorrow, where, in a near-cameo role, she is aroused by the cruelty of Robert Ryan's nasty character.

"We're all sisters under the mink."

Gloria Grahame was impressive during the 1950s, starring in several Noir classics, winning an Oscar, appearing in a Best Picture winner, and even warbling in a musical. Despite those accomplishments, it's her work in crime dramas that have proven to be her enduring legacy. Given the cultish appeal of Film Noir, it is unlikely that Grahame will receive a widespread renaissance, but to those who've seen her work, she's a fondly-kept secret.