Cinema Seminar:
The Thin Man

Taught by Jennifer Fleeger, Ph.D.
Marie Frazee-Baldassarre Professor of Film Studies in the Department of English, Montclair State University

The Thin Man (1934) is the first big-screen mystery featuring the dashing, witty, and mildly inebriated couple Nick and Nora Charles (William Powell and Myrna Loy), who were created by Dashiell Hammett. The wildly successful film perfectly combined mystery, comedy, and romance in a cocktail adored by critics and audiences alike, spawning five sequels and providing countless crossword-puzzle clues over the last ninety years.

Yet, The Thin Man is more complex than it may seem. In its mingling of the happy and well-heeled leisure class and their previously jailed acquaintances, the movie implies that the line between respectable citizen and criminal might not be as clear as we think—a particularly interesting notion during the Great Depression. The film is best known for the witty banter most associated with the era’s screwball comedies, despite being framed as a mystery by a noted author of detective fiction. Film critic Andrew Sarris called Nick and Nora “the first on-screen Hollywood couple for whom matrimony did not signal the end of sex, romance, and adventure.”

How does Sarris’s observation shed light on presumptions about gender, genre, and class in the 1930s? What are the film’s connections to Hammett’s source novel, itself inspired by the author’s relationship with playwright Lillian Hellman? We will also explore the background of the movie’s two stars, look at director W.S. “One Take” Van Dyke’s approach to filming, and consider variations on the mystery plot as they relate to real social issues over time. In doing so, the seminar—like the film—will be a great deal of fun.