Adding a baby into a successful series is usually a shark-jump. You might think that would especially be the case when the series is about a jet-setting couple comprised of a drunken detective and his hot, angelically understanding wife, but you’d be underestimating two things.
 
First, never sell short the power of rich people to get other folks to raise their kids. It works on Days of Our Lives, and there’s no reason it can’t work for Nick and Nora Charles. I always loved how you could watch a soap opera for three months and not realize that one of the main characters had kids until the nanny escorted the little darlings into the room for a check-in. Likewise, the Thin Man series is about Nick’s swigging vodka and solving crimes, not spooning baby food and changing diapers. No one wants to see that; least of all Nick.

Of course, this being a mystery series, the nanny has a secret past. And it may just be connected to the person who’s threatening the life of the grumpy, old colonel who manages Nora’s money. Since the Colonel doesn’t want the police involved (rich people never want the police involved, making it convenient for the writers), he asks Nick to help.

Second, don’t underestimate the chemistry. Nick and Nora have loads of it, and by God, so do they and their kid. He may only get trotted out occasionally, but when he does, William Powell and Myrna Loy make you believe that they love that squishy baby. There’s genuine, unironic fondness when Nick kisses his son or when all three family members crash on the bed for a snooze. And that makes Nick’s concern over his family’s safety feel very real when it’s threatened.
 
In many ways, Another Thin Man is the darkest of the series so far. This third installment is still very, very funny — especially Nick’s battle with the Colonel over whether or not Nick’s going to be sober — but the stakes are higher with family involved. For the first time, Nick becomes personally invested in a case instead of just seeing it as a fun mental exercise, and that makes Another Thin Man extremely interesting to watch. —Michael May

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The sequel to 1934’s The Thin Man features the return of William Powell’s hard-quipping and even harder-drinking detective Nick Charles and his hot, extremely understanding wife, Nora (Myrna Loy). Like in the first movie, Nick spends the entirety of After the Thin Man smashed while still running investigative circles around the police. To be fair, the story does take place at New Year.

This time, the murder is a family affair when one of Nora’s cousins is accused of murdering her no-good, philandering bum of a husband. The death doesn’t occur until about halfway through the movie, however. The first half is all about re-establishing Nick and Nora’s relationship as they move back to San Francisco after their New York adventure in the first movie. Not that that’s at all dull.

No matter how good your own relationship is, Powell and Loy will still make you jealous of theirs. That’s even more remarkable once the movie reveals just how far their individual sides of the tracks are from each other. The Thin Man hinted at it by showing Nick’s getting reacquainted with old crooks he’d put away, but it really comes into focus in the sequel. As Nick and Nora ride home from the train station, she greets people with big hats and monocles; Nick says “hello” to a pickpocket and the guy who delivers his booze.

That makes it all the more fun when their two worlds collide, and Nora’s stuffy aunt has to ask “Nicholas” (as she insists on calling him) to quietly help the family out. Hilarity ensues (especially in a scene where Nick carries a conversation all by himself in a smoking room full of snoring, old codgers), but like The Thin Man, there’s also a great mystery with plenty of diverse suspects, one of whom is a very young Jimmy Stewart as the Nice Guy in love with Nora’s newly widowed cousin. —Michael May

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When people talk about The Thin Man (or any of its sequels) they rightfully credit William Powell and Myrna Loy with making it a classic. As Nick and Nora Charles, Powell and Loy rag on each other ceaselessly, but — unlike most comedy couples — they do if from a place of absolute, mutual adoration. Audiences never doubt for a second that these two truly like each other. Add to that some filthy riches and the free time to solve mysteries while stinking drunk, and you’ve got a life that any couple would envy.

What often gets missed, however, is that The Thin Man actually has a damn good mystery to it, being based on a Dashiell Hammet novel. Former detective Nick Charles has returned to New York after a four-year honeymoon in California and is pulled reluctantly into a murder investigation involving a former client. Pulled by the police, the suspect’s family and the local media; pushed by Nora, who’s a little bored herself of the constant partying she and Nick have been doing.

Nick finally gives in, but he’ll be damned if he’s going to sober up to solve this thing. There are lots of suspects and plenty of motives to sort through, but Nick negotiates them all with intelligence and charm without even having to set down his cocktail. He slurs and grins his way through the case all the way to the requisite, gather-all-the-suspects dinner party at the end. Nora mostly looks on with curiosity while making good-natured faces at her husband in this one, but she gets more to do in the five sequels that followed. —Michael May

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