This year marks the 90th anniversary of a Hollywood classic that spawned five sequels and a brand of cocktail glass. Cinema Paradiso raises a toast to The Thin Man (1934).
It's hard to imagine the state of the world when William Powell and Myrna Loy were cast as Nick and Nora Charles in MGM's adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's bestselling crime novel, The Thin Man (1934). The United States was in the midst of the Great Depression, while Fascism was on the rise in Europe and Japan was flexing its military muscles in Manchuria. Yet this urbane whodunit seemed to take place in an alternative reality, in which it was always cocktail hour and every quip uttered by the celebrated sleuth and his wealthy wife shimmered with teasing wit and adoring seductiveness.
No wonder the six films featuring Nick and Nora caught the imagination and retain their appeal in a modern age with plenty of troubles of its own. But how did the series come about and who were the stars who made it so relishably memorable?
Bill
William Horatio Powell was born on 29 July 1892 in Pittsburgh. Having taken a public speaking course to boost his self-confidence, the bashful youth started acting at school and borrowed money from a wealthy aunt in order to train at the American Academy of Dramatic Art. He struggled as a jobbing actor until he was taken under the wing of actor-manager Leo Ditrichstein, who helped him extend his range in a variety of stage roles.
However, Powell's prospects were not helped by his unhappy 1915 marriage to actress Eileen Wilson and he saw little of his son, William, Jr. Things improved following his Broadway success in Spanish Love (1920), as it led to a meeting with film director Albert Parker, who cast Powell as Forman Wells, one of Moriarty's henchmen, in Sherlock Holmes, which starred John Barrymore. Discovering a talent for screen villainy, Powell menaced Marion Davies's Mary Tudor as the scheming Duke Francis in When Knighthood Was in Flower (both 1922) before gracing the 17th-century French court as the Duc d'Orléans in Under the Red Robe (1923).
Having been eminently hissable in The Bright Shawl (1923), Powell held his own against Lillian Gish and Ronald Colman as Tito in Henry King's George Elliot adaptation, Romola (1924). This led to him signing to Paramount, where he made a couple of comedies with Bebe Daniels before impressing in the Josef von Sternberg duo of The Last Command and The Drag Net (both 1928). Sadly, however, many of the caddish roles that Powell took between 1925-27 have been lost forever - as, indeed, have the majority of silent movies and, even though it has been guided by contemporary reviews and fanzine copy, our knowledge of world cinema before 1930 has largely been shaped by chance. Who knows how many films would now be in the silent canon if they hadn't been destroyed at a time when archiving was not in vogue or have since fallen victim to vinegar syndrome and decay?
Thanks to his stage background, Powell made an easy transition to talkies and scored popular hits as S. S. Van Dine's amateur detective, Philo Vance, in Mal St Clair's The Canary Murder Case (1929 and Frank Tuttle's The Benson Murder Case (1930). He also forged a six-film partnership with Kay Francis after playing gambler Natural Davis in John Cromwell's Street of Chance (1930), which confirmed his move away from villains to edgy good guys.
After eight films in seven months, which saw him wrongfully imprisoned in Shadow of the Law and busted for bribing a juror in For the Defense (both 1930), Powell was off screen for eight months and he decided to leave Paramount for Warner Bros, in the hope of finding more varied assignments and more dynamic directors. In signing off with Richard Wallace's Man of the World (1931), however, Powell met Carole Lombard. Despite the 16-year age gap and the fact that he was private and quiet living, while she was a socialising bundle of energy, Powell and Lombard married in June 1931. They only remained together until August 1933, although they remained close friends until her tragic death in a plane crash in 1942.
Minnie
Although Myrna Williams was born in Helena, Montana on 2 August 1905, she was raised in Culver City after her father died when she was 13. This would become home to Metro-Goldwy-Mayer, the studio that would boast to having more stars than there were in the heavens. But young Myrna was more interested in dancing than acting. However, she was bitten by the bug while performing in the cine-variety shows staged at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre to keep audiences amused before screenings of such epics as Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1923) and Raoul Walsh's The Thief of Bagdad (1924).
As luck would have it, Myrna's photo was spotted outside the venue by Rudolph Valentino, who had her tested for a role in Cobra (1925). Technical issues meant that the result was a disaster, although she got to model a dress designed for Kathleen Keyes in a camera test for Fred Niblo's Ben-Hur (1925) and was nearly cast as the Madonna. Director Christy Cabanne was sufficiently impressed to give her a small role as a dancer in Pretty Ladies (1925), in which she formed part of a human chandelier with Lucille Le Sueur, who would go on to become Joan Crawford.
Valentino's wife, Natacha Rambova, was also taken by Myrna and cast her as a vamp when she tried directing with What Price Beauty? (1925). However, the venture was held up for three years and the print was lost in the 1965 fire at the MGM vault. Now using her stage name, Loy found her depiction in an unseen film going before her, as she became typecast in villainous roles for the remainder of the silent era.
Signing a seven-year contract with Warners in 1925, she featured in 12 films the following year, including Ernst Lubitsch's So This Is Paris and Alan Crosland's Don Juan, which made history for showing simultaneously with a score and some sound effects recorded on a Vitaphone disc. Having cast her as Lucretia Borgia's lady-in-waiting, the same director used Loy as a chorus girl in an even more significant picture, The Jazz Singer (1927), which saw Al Jolson's ad-libs between songs launch the sound era.
Regrettable though it is to report, it was common in the studio era to use face paint to darken the skin and Loy came to rue the number of 'exotic' roles she played in around 30 features between 1927-30. Among them were a sarong-wearing Polynesian in Across the Pacific (1926); a Senegalese spy in the Great War parody, Ham and Eggs At the Front (1927); a Chinese girl in Howard Hawks's A Girl in Every Port and Archie Mayo's The Crimson City (both 1928); an Arab in The Desert Song; a Gypsy in Alexander Korda's The Squall; a Khyber rebel in John Ford's The Black Watch; and a Mexican in Reginald Barker's The Great Divide (all 1929).
Loy got her first taste of crime fighting, as a Southern belle posing as a gangster's moll in the now-lost The Girl From Chicago (1927). She took a similar part in the part-talkie, State Street Sadie, and also had her moment in the spotlight in the modern storyline of Michael Curtiz's Noah's Ark (both 1928). Loaned to Fox, she made an unlikely team with Bela Lugosi in Victor Fleming's desert saga, Renegades, which she followed with a more suitable pairing with Loretta Young in The Truth About Youth and The Devil to Pay (all 1930), in which Loy respectively played a gold-digging nightclub chanteuse and a platinum blonde showgirl.
In just five years, Loy had appeared in 52 films of middling quality. But she acquired a reputation for committing to roles, no matter how ridiculous they were, and, consequently, there was no shortage of offers when she quit Warners after The Naughty Flirt (1931), which led Fox to cast her as similarly spoilt socialites in Body and Soul, Hush Money, and Transatlantic. She displayed a marvellous comic touch as Morgan Le Fay opposite Will Rogers in A Connecticut Yankee, only for Fox to drop her option and promptly re-hire her as a freelancer for Skyline (1931).
Following Consolation Marriage, The Woman in Room 13, and John Ford's Arrowsmith (all 1931), Loy played Becky Sharp in a low-budget adaptation of Vanity Fair. This prompted MGM to bring her home to Culver City for Emma, in which she played a brattish daughter opposite Marie Dressler, and The Wet Parade (all 1932), a preachy Upton Sinclair diatribe on the evils of drink that is all the more amusingly ironic when one considers the unquenchable thirsts of Nick and Nora Charles.
After slipping down the cast list in New Morals For Old (1932), Loy got to demonstrate her glamour and ability to deliver dialogue with sincerity and insouciance in Rouben Mamoulian's Love Me Tonight (1932), a sublime Paramount musical starring Maurice Chevalier. Despite returning to exotica as the half-Javanese Ursula and Fah Lo See in Thirteen Women and The Mask of Fu Manchu (both 1932), Loy again displayed the newfound maturity that would make her such an enduring star. Such a fate would be denied a debuting cast member in Thirteen Women, however, as Welsh actress Peg Entwistle would achieve a different kind of immortality by jumping to her death from the Hollywoodland sign just two days after the film was released. Her sad story is at the heart of Ryan Murphy's acclaimed mini-series, Hollywood (2020).
Converging Paths
No sooner had Loy arrived at MGM than David O. Selznick borrowed her for Edward H. Griffith's The Animal Kingdom (1932) and Harry D'Abbadie D'Arrast's Topaze (1933). As second leads Cecilia and Coco, she showed her facility with witty dialogue and her skill at conveying amused disapproval with a slyly impassive glance, which would become a Nora trademark. She also caught the eye of the critics as Diana in Sam Wood's The Barbarian, Mary in Robert Z. Leonard's When Ladies Meet, and Gertie in W.S. Van Dyke's Penthouse (all 1933).
As the gangster's girl who wrinkles her nose, cracks wise, and gives as good as she gets, she must have convinced the writers (Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett), the producer (Hunt Stromberg), and the director of The Thin Man that she would be perfect for Nora. Known for his speedy shooting style, 'One Take Woody' Van Dyke would direct Loy as another gangland gal with a heart of gold in The Prizefighter and the Lady before she played the perfect wife for the first time, with a four-minute turn as pilot William Gargan's concerned spouse, in Clarence Brown's Night Flight (both 1933).
Meanwhile, Powell had become a big shot at Warners, with a contract that gave him control over both the content of his pictures and his co-stars. Having played a womaniser who meets his match in Alfred E. Green's The Road to Singapore (1931), he showed off his talent for comic drunks for the first time as bibulous promoter Gar Evans in Mervyn LeRoy's High Pressure, which gave him the chance to handle zingy dialogue and a worldly debonair charm. Hints of Nick's rapport with lowlifes were in evidence in William Dieterle's Jewel Robbery, in which Powell's gentlemanly Viennese thief intrigues baroness Kay Francis. They were teamed for the final time in Tay Garnett's One Way Passage, which centres on doomed lovers on an ocean voyage. But Powell returned to the criminous margins as Anton Adam in Dieterle's Lawyer Man (all 1932), which co-starred the always enjoyable Joan Blondell as his tough cookie secretary, Olga
The Depression forced Powell to take a sizeable pay cut and he found himself revisiting Philo Vance in The Kennel Murder Case and playing another snoop, Donald Free, in Private Detective 62 (all 1933), both for Michael Curtiz. Vance is Holmesian in his passion for sleuthing, while Nick Charles solves cases to stave off boredom before the bar opens. Reluctant to get typecast as a shamus, Powell refused The Dragon Murder Case and, instead, essayed con man Sherwood Nash in William Dieterle's Fashions of 1934, with came with Bette Davis and Busby Berkeley's infamous human harp production number.
Despite his trepidation about playing Vance, Powell agreed to be loaned to MGM for The Thin Man. However, the production was delayed and his success in W.S. Van Dyke's Manhattan Melodrama led to the studio taking over his contract after he had returned to Warners to make Michael Curtiz's The Key (both 1934), in which Powell essayed a British officer in 1920s Dublin.
Powell was 40 when he arrived at MGM and some questioned producer David O. Selnick's wisdom in hiring him just as the scope for his patented brand of amoral urbanity was coming under threat by the formation of the Production Code Administration under Will H. Hays and Joseph I. Breen. No doubt the latter would have clamped down on the romantic mischief in Frank Capra's classic screwball comedy, It Happened One Night, which had swept the board at the Oscars. Best Actor winner Clark Gable returned to the studio from his loan to Columbia to shoot Richard Boleslawski's Men in White (1934), which paired him with Loy, as his self-centred society sweetheart, Laura Hudson. This was regarded as a sideways step, but she reunited with Gable, Van Dyke, and Selznick on Manhattan Melodrama, which was Powell's first MGM picture, as Jim Wade, the lawyer pal of Blackie Gallagher who poaches his girl, Eleanor, while opposing his nefarious schemes.
The moment Jim and Eleanor jump into the back of the same taxi cab marked the first time that William Powell and Myrna Loy ever set eyes on each other. Always in a hurry, Van Dyke hadn't had time to introduce them before he ordered Loy to run out of a back lot building, jostle through a crowd in the darkness and plunge into the cab. She landed on Powell's lap and he greeted her with the words, ''Miss Loy, I presume?' They would go on to forge a 14-film partnership that many would consider to be the finest romantic pairing in Hollywood history.
The Thin Man
Woody Van Dyke was such a fan of crime novels that he even wrote a couple of his own. They weren't of the same calibre, however, as the hardboiled thrillers penned by Dashiell Hammett, who had created private eye, Sam Spade. So, when MGM acquired the rights to Hammett's latest bestseller, The Thin Man, Van Dyke insisted on directing the screen version of what respected critic Alexander Woollcott had called 'the best detective story yet written in America'. Two weeks after Hammett's sixth and final tome hit the bookshelves in January 1934, MGM had announced that William Powell and Myrna Loy would be cast as married detectives, Nick and Nora Charles.
Louis B. Mayer had wanted to cast silent siren Laura La Plante as Nora, but Van Dyke got his dream pairing. Indeed, a delay in shooting to accommodate Manhattan Melodrama meant that Powell had been signed by the studio by the time the camera started to roll. The hold-up also gave Van Dyke the chance to shape the thinking of married screenwriters Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett (who each claimed never to have read a thriller before), as he wanted them to play down the mystery element and focus on the repartee between a husband and wife who behaved as though they were still courting.
This was quite a departure from the traditional Hollywood approach to marriage and the Hacketts drew on their own relationship to provide Van Dyke with the eight bits of marital business he had demanded to exploit the chemistry between Powell and Loy that he had witnessed on the set of Manhattan Melodrama (which was the film that Loy-loving gangster John Dillinger had gone to see when he was ambushed by cops in Chicago). However, zippy badinage and endless drinking were also a factor in Hammett's romance with playwright Lillian Hellman, which Fred Zinnemann would explore in Julia (1977), which earned Jason Robards the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Hammett.
Such was the speed with which pictures were made during the studio era that the script was completed on 29 March, shooting began on 12 April, and the first reviews appeared on 23 May, two days before The Thin Man opened. Accounts differ as to whether Van Dyke finished filming in 12, 16, or 18 days. But he had been ordered to treat the production as a glorified B movie that could not interfere with Loy's next venture, Sam Wood's Stamboul Quest (1934), which the front office deemed to be more prestigious.
The plot revolves around the disappearance of workaholic engineer Clyde Wynant (Edward Ellis), who has promised to give away daughter Dorothy (Maureen O'Sullivan) on her wedding day. As Nick Charles (William Powell) had encountered the family before, he agrees to take the case, even though he has been retired since marrying his wealthy wife, Nora (Myrna Loy). New York cop Lieutenant John Guild (Nat Pendleton) is baffled by the conflicting testimonies of the missing man's ex-wife, Mimi (Minna Gombell), her new spouse Chris Jorgenson (Cesar Romero), lawyer Herbert MacCauley (Porter Hall), and Dorothy's bookworm brother (William Henry) and her anxious fiancée (Henry Wadsworth).
Intriguingly, in a radical departure from the private eye film formula, the script focuses on the Wynants and their domestic disputes for the first 12 minutes. But the tone changes abruptly when the scene shifts to a New York bar, where Nick is teaching the staff how to shake cocktails. Given that Prohibition had only ended a few months earlier, his insatiable thirst and Nora's ability to match him drink for drink might have shocked contemporary audiences. But they were never seen to be incapacitated and the Nick and Nora style of cocktail glasses are still sold today.
Nick is interrupted when Nora is dragged into the room by their wire-haired terrier, Asta, who causes her to trip over, dropping the various parcels she has acquired while Christmas shopping. It's a wonderful introduction to the pair, who immediately start trading the affectionate quips and barbs that are their hallmark as Nora insists on the waiter lining up five martinis so she can catch up with Nick's intake. Although the performances are perfect, Van Dyke has to take some credit, as he had told Powell that his rhythmic cocktail routine was a non-camera rehearsal to ensure he stayed relaxed, while Loy wasn't given details of her pratfall entrance until just before she did it, so that it felt spontaneous because she hadn't had long to think about it.
Equally off the cuff was the scene in which Nick shoots at Christmas tree ornaments with a pop gun, as Van Dyke had noticed Powell fooling around with the set dressers while waiting for his next scene. Most fans, however, will claim that their highlight is the festive party that Nick throws for all the crooks he has sent to prison. None bears him any malice and Nora jokes that her husband knows the loveliest people, as she tries to persuade him to take the Wynant case, after Dorothy gatecrashes to confess to the murder of her father's mistress. Nora is genuinely curious to see Nick in sleuthing action. Thus, when she catches him giving Dorothy a consoling hug, Nora merely wrinkles her nose rather than making accusations and Nick responds by pulling faces at her.
No one had ever seen an old married couple behaving in this manner on screen before and many believed that Powell and Loy were actually an item. As he later wrote: 'When we did a scene together, we forgot about technique, camera angles and microphones. We weren't acting. We were just two people in perfect harmony. Many times I've played with an actress who seemed to be separated from me by a plate-glass window; there was no contact at all. But Myrna, unlike some actresses who think only of themselves, has the happy faculty of being able to listen while the other fellow says his lines. She has the give and take of acting that brings out the best.'
Once again, Van Dyke contributed to the sense of closeness. There is little over-the-shoulder cutting between close-ups, as he wanted Nick and Nora in the same frame to capture their byplay as besotted equals. Watch them fooling around in their hotel room when MacCaulay takes a phone call, as the focus is on their antics rather than what is actually a key plot development. Even when Joe Morelli (Edward Brophy) holds them at gunpoint, the chit-chat matters more than the threat, with Nora being peeved when Nick knocks her out for her own protection before jumping Morelli because she had wanted to see her man be a hero.
She did get to witness him in deductive mode during the dinner party denouement, however. With Nick's lowlife pals serving as waiters, this big reveal scene was still a novelty in whodunit movies and Powell was unusually flustered by the amount of dialogue he had to remember. As he kept flubbing his lines, Van Dyke had to call for several retakes. In her autobiography, Myrna Loy: Being and Becoming (1988), his co-star recalled that each set-up required the guests to be served with the same plates of oysters, which didn't take kindly to being under the hot studio lights. 'They began to putrefy,' she wrote. 'By the time we finished that scene, nobody ever wanted to see another oyster.'
One Take Woody was also acutely aware of Asta's role in the Charles household. Keep an eye on the trees, lampposts, and fire hydrants during Nick and Nora's Christmas Day stroll, as they stop at each one and the dog lead stretches out of shot in the subtlest of sight gags. Changing sex from the books, Asta was played by Skippy, who did a nice line in high leaps, back flips, barking, and scuttling into hiding places at the first hint of danger. In fact, his trainer refused to let Powell and Loy get over-acquainted with their co-star in case it affected his concentration. Indeed, Loy claims that Skippy once bit her, although he was only really interested in the biscuits and the squeaky mouse toy with which he was rewarded after each scene.
Had the Palm Dog Award existed in 1934, Skippy would have been a shoo-in. However, he and Loy were overlooked at the Oscars, as The Thin Man went up for Best Picture, while Van Dyke, the Hacketts, and Powell were all nominated for their efforts. They all lost out to their counterparts in It Happened One Night - Frank Capra, Robert Riskin, and Clark Gable - which made history by becoming the first feature to win the Big Five awards.
Hammett approved thoroughly of the adaptation, while The Hollywood Reporter summed up the reviews by proclaiming the picture, 'A smart honey. A sophisticated wow.' Powell and Loy later reprised the roles in a Lux Radio Theatre broadcast on 8 June 1936. But a good deal had to happen in between.
Between Thin Men
While Loy was making Stamboul Quest, whose tale of Great War espionage overlapped with George Fitzmaurice's Greta Garbo vehicle, Mata Hari (1932), MGM announced that she would join Powell in his return to Philo Vance in The Casino Murder Case. However, he refused the role and insisted instead on William K. Howard's Evelyn Prentice (1934), in which Loy played a wife unhappy with the time her lawyer husband is devoting to the defence of socialite Rosalind Russell. The drama took over $1 million at the US box office, but MGM realised that punters preferred Powell and Loy in light entertainments rather than earnest literary adaptations.
Loy moved on to Frank Capra's Broadway Bill (1934), which paired her with Warner Baxter, as Alice Higgins, the unmarried sister-in-law who helps fulfil a racetrack dream. However, Capra disliked a picture that had been hampered by Baxter's fear of horses and he remade it as Riding High in 1950. In her absence, MGM paired Loy with Powell in Escapade (1935). But she refused to make the film unless they were paid equal salaries and went on strike while he shot the drama with Austrian actress Luise Rainer. The fact it's almost impossible to see these days suggests it was not a success.
Unwilling to work for her home studio, Loy went to Paramount to co-star with Cary Grant in Wings in the Dark, which was produced by Arthur Hornblow, Jr., who would become the first of her four husbands. Love was also in the air in the set of Reckless after Mayer discovered that Powell was dating Jean Harlow and gave her a part that had been earmarked for Joan Crawford. With Loy still standing her ground, the mogul also replaced her with Rosalind Russell as Powell's partner in William K. Howard's Rendezvous (all 1935), which cast him as coding expert during the Great War.
Unhappy with the part and frustrated at not being able to work with Loy, Powell decamped to RKO to play wisecracking sleuths opposite Ginger Rogers in Star of Midnight (1935) and Jean Arthur in The Ex-Mrs Bradford (1936), a pair of clumsy Thin Man knock-offs, whose female leads gamely tried to emulate Myrna Loy's relaxed charm. Carole Lombard didn't need to be anyone other than herself and she and Powell excelled in Gregory La Cava's My Man Godfrey (1936). She plays a socialite who makes a homeless man her butler, but it was Powell who earned his second Oscar nomination in a biting satire on class and entitlement that is still as relevant as ever.
It also made the record books for being the first film to receive Oscar nominations for Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay without being up for Best Picture. This was won by Robert Z. Leonard's The Great Ziegfeld (1936), which was the first film to team Powell and Loy in 17 months. However, she is confined to the supporting role of actress Billie Burke, as the main storyline centres on the relationship between Broadway entrepreneur Florenz Ziegfeld (Powell) and his first wife, singer Anna Held (Luise Rainer). She would win the first of her consecutive Best Actress awards, while Powell lost out to Paul Muni for William Dieterle's The Story of Louis Pasteur.
Meanwhile, Loy was still ploughing a lone furrow and has signed with Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur to make Soak the Rich (1936). Before she could start work, however, MGM brought her home with a $25,000 bonus and a first pairing with Spencer Tracy, as Vivian Palmer in Sam Wood's crime drama, Whipsaw (1935). She also secured a third outing with Clark Gable, as Linda Stanhope in Clarence Brown's romantic comedy, Wife vs Secretary (1936), which also starred Jean Harlow and James Stewart as her beau.
Both pictures proved highly profitable, although Loy didn't just make high-profile hits in this period. She played Irene Campton in George Fitzmaurice's Petticoat Fever, as a woman who falls for telegraph operator Robert Montgomery in a remote Labrador outpost, while she traipsed off to Fox to essay Mary Wallace looking back on a decade of marriage to Warner Baxter in John Cromwell's To Mary - With Love (both 1936). Back at MGM, Loy found herself playing second fiddle to Powell and Harlow in Jack Conway's Libeled Lady (1936), which sees a New York newspaper libel socialite Connie Allenbury (Loy) by calling her a husband thief. In an effort to justify his story, managing editor Warren Haggerty (Spencer Tracy) has fixer Bill Chandler (Powell) marry sweetheart Gladys Benton (Harlow) so he can flirt with Connie in the hope she'll make a play for him. Considered risqué at the time for challenging Production Code attitudes to marriage, this sprightly farce was nominated for Best Picture. But, like so many Powell and Loy films from their golden period, it's not available on disc in the UK and MGM ought to be ashamed of itself. Thankfully, Cinema Paradiso users can order our next title and have it drop through their letterbox with nothing more than a single click.
After the Thin Man
Contrary to popular belief, the 'Thin Man' of the film series is not Nick Charles, but Clyde Wynant. However, MGM decided to reuse the Hammett title so that audiences could be sure of what they were getting when they went to see W.S. Van Dyke's After the Thin Man (1936). Several things had conspired to delay the sequel, not least the fact that Hammett had only written one Nick and Nora novel, but retained the rights to the characters. As an alcoholic, he was also prone to be unpredictable and film studios like MGM could not afford imponderables when producing expensive items like motion pictures.
Finally, on 23 October 1934, Hammett signed a $2000 a week deal to devise a scenario by January 1935. Producer Hunt Stromberg had wanted to continue the action from the original story on New Year's Eve, with Joe Morelli calling to say that he has been framed for another crime involving the Wynant family. However, Hammett declined the idea, although he did borrow Stromberg's notion of opening with Nick being thrown a surprise party in San Francisco so that Nora could comment again on the delightful class of person he knew.
Having sobered up to provide the outline, Hammett embarked upon a lost weekend, leaving Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett to take up the reins, even though they hadn't particularly enjoyed making the first film and had suggested bumping the Charleses off to prevent there being a third film. When Stromberg refused, they ended proceedings with Nora knitting booties in the hope that a baby would keep them out of further mischief. However, the suits at MGM knew they were on to a winner and gave Van Dyke a $673,000 budget and permission to shoot on location when work began in September 1936.
Such was the public view of Nick and Nora that the hotel booked Loy and Powell into the same suite because the management had presumed they were married in real life. Hammett traded on this familiarity in the opening scene to reassure audiences that they were in for more of the same, as Nick raps with a pickpocket named Fingers (Harry Tyler), who has just stolen Nora's purse. The journey from the station reinforces the social conundrum, as Nick is greeted in his open-top cat by ne'er-do-wells and Nora by a couple of swells from the upper bracket.
The surprise party continues the theme, with the twist that none of the guests has the first idea who Nick and Nora are when they first arrive. A song is belted out and two more follow during a nightclub scene. But, having reminded everyone of the couple's blissful existence, the plot gets down to tacks when Nora's cousin, Selma Landis (Elissa Landi), calls for help because her bad egg husband, Robert (Alan Marshall), has disappeared.
More fun is had at the expense of 'Nicholas', as Nora's Aunt Katherine (Jesse Ralph) makes it clear that the family disapproves of her match. But it's the bluebloods who are exposed to ridicule after the scene shifts to the Landis home and Nick conducts a solo conversation over the port with his snoozing elderly in-laws. Things take a darker turn, though, when Robert is killed and Selma is found standing over him with a gun that is quickly disposed of by her devoted admirer, David Graham (James Stewart).
The case is complicated for Lieutenant Abrams (Sam Levene) by the fact that David had been about to pay Robert $25,000 to leave town with nightclub singer, Polly Byrnes (Dorothy McNulty). However, her controlling brother, Phil (Paul Fix), has his eyes on the dough, as does her boss, Dancer (Joseph Calleia). Moreover, Selma suffers a breakdown following Robert's murder and she is treated by the sinister Dr Kamme (George Zucco).
The story takes its twists and turns before Nick assembles the suspects for another reveal. However, he hasn't arrived at a solution and gets lucky when someone makes a foolish slip. But the mystery is only ever a pretext for such classic Nick and Nora moments like the midnight scrambled egg exchange that would have left all viewers in 1936 with the certainty that the only reason that they have single beds is the Production Code. By contrast, Asta's domestic situation is far from ideal, as Mrs Asta is being visited by the dog from next door and the terrier has to plug a hole under the fence to keep him out. He also gets into trouble for running off with a vital clue and chewing it to prevent his owners from cracking the case.
The reveal is mostly notable in hindsight, as the person playing the culprit would become a firm fan favourite prior to taking their career in a darker direction after they went freelance in the 1940s. Also worth noting is that Dorothy McNulty would change her name to Penny Singleton and take on the role of Blondie Bumstead in the popular Blondie series, which ran for 28 features from 1938-50.
MGM would cheerfully have put Powell and Loy in that number of Thin Man movies, especially as this one earned $3 million at the global box office. But Hammett still owned the rights and he had no intention of revisiting the characters. Despite earning another Oscar nomination, the Hacketts were also loathe to return. Besides, the stars were too big to waste on a string of potboilers. Moreover, while they enjoyed working together - and they would reunite for the Lux Radio version of After the Thin Man on 17 June 1940 - they didn't want to become typecast and demanded that the studio found new and challenging ways of teaming them.
Another Thin Man
Perhaps to keep things fresh, MGM decided to withdraw Loy from The Last of Mrs Cheyney and pair Powell with Joan Crawford, while Loy joined Clark Gable in the Irish nationalist biopic, Parnell (both 1937). Casting Loy as Katie O'Shea and Gable as Charles Stewart Parnell proved to be a terrible idea, as John Van Druten and S. N. Behrman's screenplay was as lifeless as John M. Stahl's direction. Powell fared slightly better in his breezy comedy, although it didn't help that director Richard Boleslawski died during a shoot that was completed by Dorothy Arzner after George Fitzmaurice had temporarily taken over.
Powell joined forces with Luise Rainer again for Fitzmaurice's The Emperor's Candlesticks, a Baroness Orczy novel about Polish spy Baron Stephan Wolensky and his Russian counterpart, Countess Olga Mironova. But the studio realised that they had to bring Powell and Loy together again and decided that Richard Thorpe's Double Wedding (1937) was a suitable property. Produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz from an unstaged Ferenc Molnar play, the action pitted artist Charlie Lodge against Margit 'Baby' Agnew, the shop manager sister of Irene (Florence Rice), who is acting in a play by her fiancée and Charlie's pal, Waldo (John Beal). However, the romantic wires get crossed and these keep Charlie and Baby apart, even though he strikes a deal to paint her portrait.
It speaks volumes for Powell's professionalism that he was able to deliver such a deft performance after Jean Harlow died during the shoot. He blamed himself for not being there to take care of her and departed for a lengthy sabbatical in Europe, returning only for Walter Lang's The Baroness and the Butler (1938), as Johann Porok, the butler to the Hungarian prime minister and his daughter, Katrina (Annabella), who gets elected and for the opposition party in parliament. He's typically adept in the role, but he would remain off the screen for much of the next two years as he battled cancer and endured several painful operations.
Needing to stay busy, Loy did Richard Thorpe's Man-Proof (1937), as Mimi Smith, who regrets that Walter Pidgeon has married Rosalind Russell and settles for the anodyne Franchot Tone instead. Despite being a run-of-the mill comedy, it didn't stop fans from voting Loy Queen of Hollywood alongside King Clark Gable. The pair were presented with crowns by columnist Ed Sullivan, who went on to host the biggest entertainment show on American television. In recognition of her value to MGM, Loy also received a new $4000 weekly contract and was whisked back into Gable's orbit for Victor Fleming's Test Pilot (1938), which co-starred Spencer Tracy.
Gable and Tracy were set to be united in Too Hot to Handle (1938), with Margaret Sullavan. But Walter Pidgeon and Loy were cast instead, as the studio gave her the chance to play a bold adventuress who is also fiercely independent. But this proved to be Loy's last picture with Gable, who went off to make Victor Fleming's Gone With the Wind (1939). Loy settled for Norman Taurog's Lucky Night (1939), in which heiress Cora Jordan Overton vows to show that she doesn't need daddy's dough and winds up with gambler Robert Taylor after they get married following a wild night.
Demonstrating that she could even sparkle with mediocre material, Loy decided she needed something more demanding. She took herself off to 20th Century-Fox for Clarence Brown's The Rains Came (1939), a powerful adaptation of Pulitzer winner Louis Bromfield's novel about a flood, an earthquake, and a plague epidemic in Ranchipur that sees Loy's Lady Edwina Esketh cheat on husband Nigel Bruce with George Brent before falling for Tyrone Power's Indian army doctor, who convinces her to do something useful with her life.
The film won an Oscar for its special effects and reminded audiences that Loy was an effective dramatic actress when given the right material. However, with Powell now restored to health, there was only one picture she wanted to make, having spent the last couple of years denying press stories that Reginald Gardiner and Melvyn Douglas had been lined up as the new Nick Charles, opposite Virginia Bruce as Nora. Thankfully, she and Powell were able to reunite in W.S. Van Dyke's Another Thin Man (1939) after Hammett sold the character rights to MGM for $40,000 in February 1937.
Furthermore, Hunt Stromberg hired him to concoct a story, which was delivered in May 1938. Two months later, Hammett gave MGM a one-year option on all his writing for a further $5000. But it was Anita Loos who was credited with the story that Hackett and Goodrich expanded to feature length with such bad grace that they made Nickie, Jr. a spoilt brat who does nothing but eat and sleep. However, Van Dyke wanted Nick and Nora to be doting parents and often showed them fussing over the infant. Nevertheless, he was aware that the baby couldn't be allowed to get in the way of the action, which turns around Nora's father's old business partner, Colonel Burr MacFay (C. Aubrey Smith), who has received threats from Phil Church (Sheldon Leonard), a disgruntled former employer who is in league with Smitty (Muriel Hutchinson), Diamond Back Vogel (Don Costello), and a heavy named Dum-Dum (Abner Biberman). Scared by the peril facing her father, Lois (Virginia Grey) seeks comfort from fiancé Dudley Horn (Patrick Knowles) and MacFay's secretary, Freddie Coleman (Tom Neal).
Filming commenced in July 1939, with Van Dyke using four soundstages and lots of stand-ins to shoot around Powell, who was only working short days to avoid over-taxing himself. In order to share the sleuthing load, Nat Pendleton's Lt Guild is joined by Otto Kruger as the Long Island district attorney seeking to find the killer of his old friend. Indeed there are so many cops on the case that Nora even finds herself being interrogated, although she winds up discovering a good deal about Nick's old flames, including lighthouse keeper's daughter, Lettie Finhaden, and Bella Spruce, the name Nora uses to pass a note to Nick when she ventures into the West Indies nightclub and needs rescuing from a crowd of eager revellers.
Ruth Hussey was also cast as a bogus nanny to exploit the baby angle, which also prompted an amusing party for crooks and their tots, which culminates in an comedy of nursery errors. But critics were confused by the dense plotting, which left too little time for Powell and Loy to simply enjoy each other's company. If they wanted B mysteries, the reviews complained, people could try series centred on The Saint, The Falcon, Charlie Chan, Mr Moto, and, Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. Type the character names into the Cinema Paradiso Searchline and see what pops up!
Despite the mixed reviews, the film made $2.2 million on a $1.1 million budget and it seemed only a matter of time before Nick and Nora would be embarking upon another case.
Shadow of the Thin Man
In January 1940, 47 year-old William Powell eloped with 20 year-old Diana Lewis after he had spotted her posing by his pool for an MGM photo shoot. He would remain married to 'Mousie' for the next 44 years. By contrast, Loy was contemplating divorce from her husband. However, she agreed to a reconciliation and was forced to endure the humiliation of poisonous gossip columnist Louella Parsons gloating over the failings of the screen's textbook wife in a 1942 article.
The pair were in very different places, therefore, when they reunited on W.S. Van Dyke's l Love You Again (1940), in which stuffed shirt Larry Wilson suffers a blow on the head and discovers that he's really hard-drinking con man George Carey. Having grown bored of her holier than thou spouse, Kay is thrilled by the revelation, but decides to play hard to get by her 'new' man. The picture had been delayed for three years and it's fun to watch Powell revelling in the chance to play such contrasting characters. And one has to ask again why the US boxed set of Powell and Loy's non-Thin Man features has never been released for rental and sale in this country.
That way, viewers would be able to see the duo on fine form in Jack Conway's Love Crazy (1941), which Loy made after she had teamed with Melvyn Douglas in Robert Z. Leonard's droll romcom, Third Finger, Left Hand (1940). In the former, Steve and Susan Ireland are about to celebrate their fourth wedding anniversary by recreating the events of their big day. But Steve gets stuck in a lift with old flame Isobel (Gail Patrick), prompting Susan to demand a divorce and he pretends to be loopy in order to delay the court hearing. At one point, Powell shaves his trademark moustache to pose as his own sister, as the gleefully far-fetched plot becomes increasingly dotty.
Mercifully, the tash was back in time for W.S. Van Dyke's Shadow of the Thin Man (1941), which had been announced by MGM back in May 1940. With the Hacketts resisting all offers to return to the fold, Harry Kurnitz was entrusted with shaping a story that he developed into a screenplay with Irving Brecher, who had just made history by becoming the only writer to get a solo credit on a Marx Brothers romp, when he scripted At the Circus (1939) and Go West (1940).
As some time had passed, the action opens with Nick and Nickie, Jr. (Richard Hall) taking a stroll in the park with Asta. They are watched from the balcony through binoculars by Nora and Stella the maid (Louise Beavers), who discover that Nick was getting horse racing tips from his son instead of reading him a fairytale. However, we're soon on the trail of a killer when a jockey is found dead in the showers at the racetrack and Nick is asked to investigate by Major Jason Sculley (Henry O'Neill), who is leading an inquiry into rigged betting.
Also keeping tabs on the situation are rival reporters Whitey Barrow (Alan Baxter) and Paul Clarke (Barry Nelson), whose sweetheart, Molly (Donna Reed), works as a secretary for ace gambler Link Stephens (Loring Smith). His mistress, Claire Porter (Stella Adler) is being blackmailed by Whitey because he needs cash to pay his debts to bookmaker Rainbow Benny (Lou Lubin). But Asta's chance discovery in the racetrack changing rooms (after being frightened by a tiny kitten) and his sniffing out a missing bracelet puts Nick on the tail of the culprit.
Nora emerges as the heroine of the big reveal scene, when she jumps the gun-toting killer in a bid to protect her husband. Earlier, however, she had tried to put him in a headlock while getting carried away at a wrestling bout. Asta also causes a rumble in a crowded eaterie, which is watched with quiet amusement by Nick from his barstool. Yet, even though the picture made $2.3 million on its $821,000 budget, the critics complained that the mystery got in the way of the usual bantering.
Seven decades on, the presence of Stella Adler intrigues, as this was one of only three screen performances - along with E.A. Dupont's Love on Toast (1937) and Elliott Nugent's My Girl Tisa (1948) - given by one of the most influential Method acting coaches in theatre history. Cinema Paradiso regulars will also recognise Donna Reed early in a career that saw her follow Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946) with a Best Supporting Oscar win for Fred Zinnemann's From Here to Eternity (1953).
Shortly after The Shadow of the Thin Man was released, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and Loy threw herself into the war effort with the American Red Cross. She wouldn't make another film for three years, but she did acquire a second husband just five days after ditching the first. However, John Hertz, Jr. - who was the heir to the car rental company - turned out to be an abusive schmo and Loy divorced him less than two years after their marriage.
The same year saw Powell mourn the death of Carole Lombard, who had been on a war bonds tour when her plane crashed. He kept working intermittently during the conflict, taking a cameo in The Youngest Profession (1943) in between Crossroads (1942) and The Heavenly Body (1944), which both co-starred Hedy Lamarr, whose remarkable career on and off the screen is recalled in Alexandra Dean's compelling documentary, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2017).
The Thin Man Goes Home
When Hunt Stromberg left MGM to become an independent producer, replacement Everett Riskin asked brother Robert to write the next Thin Man picture. He had been key to Frank Capra's success in the early 1930s, as their collaborations yielded 29 Oscar nominations. His brief, however, was not to wallow in nostalgia, but to reflect the change in public taste that had taken place during the war and incorporate the shift towards cine-realism that made screwball whodunits featuring quipping, quaffing sleuths seem outdated.
Having spent the last few years with the Office of War Information, Robert Riskin found the assignment tedious, especially as there was no immediate likelihood of the film being made because Loy was busy with Red Cross work and the fans had made it quite clear that they didn't approve of MGM's plans to replace her with Irene Dunne. The mood in the Thin Man camp became even gloomier when 53 year-old Woody Van Dyke, a Christian Scientist who refused medical treatment, committed suicide in February 1943 while suffering from cancer.
Although Richard Thorpe was a solid craftsman, he lacked Van Dyke's grit, wit, and vigour. Consequently, The Thin Man Goes Home (1944) felt detached from its predecessors. Nevertheless, Powell was delighted to see Loy return to MGM. 'I've never seen a girl so popular with so many people,' he later wrote 'Everybody from wardrobe was over the set, everybody from make-up, everybody from property, everybody from miles around, it looked like.'
The storyline devised by Riskin and Dwight Taylor sent Nick to his hometown of Sycamore Springs, New England, which was constructed on the studio back lot. Despite leaving Nickie, Jr. in kindergarten, Nick and Nora still travel with Asta and find themselves in the baggage car after trying to smuggle him into a crowded compartment. On the train, they bump into Brogan (Edward Brophy), who claims to be a travelling salesman, but is really an associate of Nick's who has come along to be his eyes and ears and ensure he gets a complete break away from crime while visiting his folks (Harry Davenport and Lucille Watson).
As Dr Charles is disappointed that his son had not followed him into the medical profession, Nora makes it her mission to prove what a fine fellow Nick has become and gives her father-in-law a lurid description of a strangulation case involving a suspect named Stinky. She would later provide a running commentary during the reveal scene, only for Nick to vary his technique and leave her feeling baffled and foolish.
The need for detection comes about because a worker at the nearby aircraft factory is shot on Dr Charles's doorstep before he can confide some vital information. Nick is knocked out by Crazy Mary (Ann Revere) when he starts snooping around. But school friend Dr Bruce Clayworth (Lloyd Corrigan) offers his assistance, while Nora stumbles across a key lead when Edgar Draque (Leon Ames) offers a ridiculous price for a painting of a local windmill that she had bought for Nick's birthday. When this turns up in Crazy Mary's shack after she is murdered, Nick realises that a nest of spies is after secret information about the new propellor being developed at the factory.
If Sherlock Holmes could be brought into the present to combat enemy agents in Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942), Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon, and Sherlock Holmes in Washington (both 1943), then there was nothing to stop Nick and Nora Charles from doing their bit for morale. But they had to be sober to do it and this meant there were no bars or nightclubs to provide colourful settings for slick set-pieces. Riskin and Taylor had Nora cause a kerfuffle in a poolroom during a prolonged sequence in which she follows Brogan through the town without realising she's also being tailed by Draque.
In order to comply with the wartime rationing of alcohol, the cast was called back after shooting had ended so that Norman Taurog could direct scenes showing Nick taking sips from a hip flask full of cider, as he boasted about adopting a healthier lifestyle. These scenes took the budget up to $1.4 million budget. But the picture still doubled the investment at the box office, even though critics carped that the scenario lacked finesse and that the spanking and deckchair scenes made Nora more of a comic foil to Nick than his equal partner in crime-solving.
Of course, Powell and Loy had a lovely time together. But they went their separate ways, as he sought to redefine his screen persona in The Hoodlum Saint and The Great Morgan after reprising the role of Florenz Ziegfeld in a cameo appearance in Ziegfeld Follies. After completing her war duties, Loy returned to Hollywood in So Goes My Love (all 1946) after marrying third husband, writer-producer Gene Markey, in January 1946. Far more notable, however, was her performance as Milly Stephenson in William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), which reinforced her reputation as the perfect screen wife. Yet, while co-stars Fredric March, Teresa Wright, and Harold Russell all won Oscars, Loy wasn't even nominated after producer Samuel Goldwyn had sulked instead of lobbying on her behalf because he had wanted the role to go to Olivia De Havilland.
Song of the Thin Man
Although it was still renowned for the Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, and Fred Astaire musicals produced by the Arthur Freed unit, MGM found itself at a creative crossroads in the 1940s, as Louis B. Mayer's conservatism prevented the studio from making the problem pictures and films noirs that reflected a country much changed by its wartime experiences. The rise of television, plus the passing of the 1948 Paramount Decrees judgement (which stripped the studios of their theatre chains) also meant that the Big Five could no longer rake in the dollars and reward their stars with lavish contracts.
As numerous colleagues returned to the stage or drifted into radio and television, Powell and Loy retained their popular. Nevertheless, Loy was loaned out to David O. Selznick to co-star with Cary Grant and Shirley Temple in Irving Reiss's The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947). Powell also had to venture outside MGM to realise the dream of playing Clarence Day in Michael Curtiz's Life With Father (1947). Warners had bought the long-running stage production, whose 3224 performances remains a Broadway record for a non-musical. Fredric March and Ronald Colman were tested, but Powell convinced Jack Warner that he could play against type to convince as the traditionalist patriarch who keeps his family on a short rein. Mary Pickford was keen to play his wife, Lavinia, as were Jean Arthur, Rosalind Russell, and Rosemary DeCamp. Even Myrna Loy was considered before Irene Dunne was cast. Yet, despite the exemplary byplay that brought Powell his third and final Oscar nomination, he lost out to old friend Ronald Colman for his brooding display in George Cukor's A Double Life.
Universal persuaded Loy to take a closing scene cameo in George S. Kaufman's The Senator Was Indiscreet (1947), which saw Powell win the Best Actor award from the New York Film Critics Circle for his white-haired turn as a bungling senator who decides to run for the presidency. The film's success persuaded MGM to reunite the pair to give Nick and Nora a last hurrah. However, as so few of the old gang remained, Loy later conceded that she had not enjoyed herself. New screenwriter Nat Perrin had developed a knack for broad comedy while working with Bud Abbott and Lou Costello and Red Skelton. He had already penned The Big Store (1941), which saw the Marx Brothers part ways with MGM, when he teamed with Steve Fisher to take Song of the Thin Man (1947) into noir territory. Cinematographer Charles Rosher was charged with ladling on the chiaroscuro, while director Edward Buzzell was asked to give the picture a B feel by focussing on the mystery rather than the domestic bliss.
The action opens aboard a gambling ship, the SS Fortune, which is owned by Phil Brant (Bruce Cowling). He is unhappy that bandleader Tommy Drake (Philip Reed) is quitting to sign a new contract with entrepreneur Mitchell Talbin (Leon Ames). News of Drake's imminent departure distresses singer Fran Page (Gloria Grahame) and clarinettist Buddy Hollis (Don Taylor). But Brant is suspected when Drake is shot while burgling his safe for the $12,000 he needs to pay off a debt to gangster Al Amboy (William Bishop). So, socialite Janet Thayer (Jayne Meadows) asks Nick and Nora to prove the innocence of a fiancée who is detested by her wealthy father (Ralph Morgan).
Nick does much of the sleuthing in the company of jazz musician Clarence 'Clinker' Krause (Keenan Wynn), whose hep talk leaves the older man perplexed. He also becomes disorientated when Nickie, Jr. (Dean Stockwell) insists he rides a merry-go-round to prove to the other kids he's not a scaredy-cat. But some snooping around the sealed-off ship and a sanitarium in Poughkeepsie enables Nick to identify the culprit, with a little help from Nora and her eye for a valuable necklace.
Despite sensing that this was the end of the road, Powell and Loy make the most of the material, which the majority of the critics dismissed as mediocre. When the sixth entry became the only one in the series to lose money, MGM knew the Thin Man's race was run, although no announcements to the fact were ever made. It was a sad way to end a glorious journey. But Powell and Loy weren't quite finished yet.
Beyond the Thin Man
Such are the quirks of the UK home entertainment industry that more of Myrna Loy's late-career films are available on disc than those from her Thin Man heyday. Cinema Paradiso users can see her, therefore, as Muriel opposite Cary Grant in H.C. Potter's enduringly amusing Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948), which was remade as The Money Pit (1986), with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long. They can also see her taming Robert Mitchum's stable hand as Alice Tiflin in Lewis Milestone's adaptation of John Steinbeck's The Red Pony (1949).
While Loy went to Britain to play Lady Cathy Brooke in Gregory Ratoff's That Dangerous Age (1949), Powell headlined Nunnally Johnson's Mr Peabody and the Mermaid (1948) before seeing out the decade in Dancing in the Dark and Take One False Step (both 1949). Reluctant to reinvent himself again for a Cold War audience and content to remain at his Palm Springs home, he occasionally sallied forth to make the likes of It's a Big Country (1951), The Treasure of Lost Canyon (1952), and The Girl Who Had Everything (1953). But, having charmed Lauren Bacall as J.D. Hanley in Howard Hawks's How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), Powell decided to call it a day after stealing scenes from Henry Fonda, James Cagney, and Jack Lemmon as Doc in Mister Roberts (1955), a stage adaptation that was co-directed by John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy.
Although Loy had a hit opposite Clifton Webb as mother of 12 Lillian Gilbreth in Walter Lang's Cheaper By the Dozen (1950) and Henry Levin's sequel, Belles on Their Toes (1952), she was too preoccupied with her work for UNESCO and her final marriage to Washington politico, Howland H. Sergeant, to be bothered with acting. Indeed, Powell had retired by the time she returned to join Olivia De Havilland in The Ambassador's Daughter (1956). She hoped that Powell would join her on television, as the tutor and mother of a difficult student in 'Love Came Last', a live play in the General Electric Theater series. But he couldn't be coaxed and the ever-dependable Melvyn Douglas stepped in.
Having played the wife of editor Robert Ryan, as he makes life miserable for agony aunt Montgomery Clift, in Lonelyhearts (1958), Loy teamed with Paul Newman in From the Terrace and Doris Day in Midnight Lace (both 1960). But she found more fulfilment on stage, as she toured in a 1965 production of Barefoot in the Park. However, Mildred Natwick was cast alongside Jane Fonda and Robert Redford when Gene Saks made the film version in 1967.
That year saw Loy play Mrs Miles in the 'Lady of the House' episode of The Virginian (1962-71) and she would later guest as Lizzy Fielding in the 1972 'Étude in Black' instalment of Columbo (1968-78) and Andrea Wollcott in the 1973 'All About Andrea' episode of Ironside (1967-75). Following The April Fools (1969), she confined herself to teleplays like Death Takes a Holiday, Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate (1971), and The Couple Takes a Wife (1972). The Elevator (1974) and It Happened At Lakewood Manor (1977) followed between the all-star disaster movie, Airport 1975 (1974), and Burt Reynolds's misfiring directorial outing, The End (1978), which has since acquired a cult cachet. Returning to the big screen for the final time in Sidney Lumet's Just Tell Me What You Want (1980), Loy bowed out (as Powell had done) in the company of Henry Fonda in Summer Solstice (1981).
Having endured the agony of his son's suicide in 1968, Powell lived to the age of 91, dying at his home on 5 March 1984. Living alone after her last divorce in 1960, Loy received an Honorary Academy Award in 1991. She also lived to see Kathleen Turner present the TV special, Myrna Loy: So Nice to Come Home to (1990). This is available from Cinema Paradiso alongside the Michael York-narrated, William Powell: A True Gentleman (2005), on Alias Nick and Nora (2008), which contains clips from several of the pictures mentioned above that are currently out of reach.
It would be nice to think that Powell and Loy spoke on the phone after watching David Niven and Maggie Smith play Dick and Dora Charleston so affectionately in Neil Simon's detective spoof, Murder By Death (1976). They had left an indelible imprint, as had the Thin Man films, which were much imitated in later years, but never bettered.
Peter Lawford and Phyllis Kirk sought to rekindle the magic in the television series, The Thin Man (1957-59), while Craig Stevens and JoAnn Pflug did their utmost in the 1977 pilot, Nick and Nora. The reviews were not kind. But they were better than those meted out to the Broadway musical, Nick and Nora, which starred Barry Bostwick and Joanna Gleason and closed just a week after opening on 8 December 1991. Some things just can't be bettered. But one can still see Emma Stone as Nora or perhaps as Loy in a biopic set during the mid-30s period when she was on strike at MGM and Powell was fighting for his life. But who should be her co-star? All suggestions welcome.
