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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The White House whodunit Murder at 1600 came out about the same time as the similarly themed Clint Eastwood film Absolute Power, which was also about a philandering president and his dead mistress. Eastwood may have the critical heat, but I prefer this pulpier, more action-oriented version.

Wesley Snipes — then the king of other enjoyable-yet-middling vehicles like The Art of War, Passenger 57 and U.S. Marshals — is a D.C. detective, named Regis of all things! He’s called to the White House when a pretty young employee is found dead in the bathroom following a round of hot, late-night sex. His investigation is compromised by the White House’s unwillingness to participate, despite him being assigned a Secret Service liaison (Diane Lane).

What exactly is the president’s administration covering up? And for whom? You’ll find out toward the end of a slightly bloated running time. Dennis Miller co-stars as Snipes’ co-worker, and while he may have been a great comedian once upon a time, he’s grating as a dramatic actor, so it’s hard not to applaud when he takes a bullet. —Rod Lott

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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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Call it Dario Argento’s adaptation of Video Poker. Just don’t call it slow to get going. In the first scene, its simple plot is already in place: A madman has invited policewoman Anna Mari (Stefania Rocca) to play a game of online poker. The stakes? The life of the young woman he’s nabbed, bound, gagged and set in front of a webcam. The rules? First to three hands wins. And for each hand Anna loses, he “will amputate something.”

This being Argento, la polizia initially lose, and a nude corpse soon washes ashore with a joker card stored in her vagina and a seed shoved up her nose. Oh, well — better luck next time, newbie!

After wising up, the cops recruit a young poker expert (Silvio Muccino) to spar in future matches, which comes in handy when the chief’s daughter is one of the unsuspecting victims. Horror elements aside, The Card Player is really a mystery — more CSI than Suspiria — and one not too terribly tough at figuring out. The draw — no pun intended — is seeing what Argento does with it. Sad to say, but few shots carry his once-magic, instantly recognizable touch. Anyone could have directed this telefilm (but, it should be noted, a telefilm with nipples, pubic hair and “fuck!”).

That said, his script tries to make up for a lack of suspense with a few
perverse touches. Some work (howdy, spiked trap door!); others don’t (watching two people on train tracks play poker on a laptop is as dull as, well, watching two people play poker on a laptop). Argento nearly squanders all goodwill with this Player‘s final line/shot. Cliché alert! —Rod Lott

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Even the most die-hard of armchair sleuths would be intimidated by a 300-minute mystery. While your schedule and your ass may be unable to take Five Days all in one sitting, your mind and your curiosity will want to. A production of the great BBC, the Gwyneth Hughes-penned miniseries is comprised of five one-hour episodes, each depicting a single day in the aftermath of a crime.

That crime is the sudden, shocking disappearance and presumed murder of Leanne Wellings (Christine Tremarco), a twice-married mother of three who vanishes while buying flowers from a roadside vendor, leaving her two youngest children waiting in the car. The kids make their way toward home, but they, too, are soon missing.

Hot-tempered husband/father Matt (David Oyelowo) is torn up at the prospect of losing his entire immediate family, while also considered a possible suspect by the authorities leading the investigation (Hugh Bonneville and Janet McTeer). Their widening net weaves in encounters with journalists, a potential pedophile, a nursing home resident (Edward Woodward) and one horny young woman (Sarah Smart) with a secret.

While full of twists and revelations, Hughes’ screenplay doesn’t ignore characterization, and there are plenty of people you get to know in that amount of time. The day-an-episode structure could be a gimmick, but she smartly avoids that, mostly in making those days not consecutive, which heightens the drama and asks viewers to fill in part of what happened in the time that elapsed. A second season, with a new story and characters, has yet to play the States. —Rod Lott

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