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Shadow of the Thin Man

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Shadow of the Thin Man
Image of the film poster showing Myrna Loy and William Powell
Theatrical release poster
Directed byW. S. Van Dyke
Screenplay by
Story byHarry Kurnitz
Based onCharacters by Dashiell Hammett
Produced byHunt Stromberg
Starring
CinematographyWilliam H. Daniels
Edited byRobert J. Kern
Music byDavid Snell
Production
company
Distributed byLoew's Inc.
Release date
  • November 21, 1941 (1941-11-21) (US)
Running time
97 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$821,000
Box office$2,301,000

Shadow of the Thin Man is a 1941 American murder mystery comedy film directed by W. S. Van Dyke and starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles. It was produced and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as the fourth in the series of six The Thin Man films. In this film their son Nick Jr. (Dickie Hall) is old enough to figure in the comic subplot. Other cast members include Donna Reed and Barry Nelson. This was one of three films in which Stella Adler appeared.

Plot

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Nick and Nora Charles are looking forward to a relaxing day at a racetrack, but when a jockey accused of throwing a race is found shot to death, Police Lieutenant Abrams requests Nick's help. The trail leads to a gambling syndicate that operates out of a wrestling arena, a murdered reporter, and a pretty secretary whose boyfriend has been framed. Along the way, Nick and Nora must contend with a wild wrestling match, a dizzying day at a merry-go-round (accompanied by Nick, Jr.), and a table-clearing restaurant brawl.

Cast

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Production

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Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, the husband and wife team who wrote the first three Thin Man scripts, refused to write another one. Goodrich said: "They press you awfully hard there…when they started talking about another Thin Man, we started throwing up and crying into our typewriters. We had the nervous breakdown together, [so] we said, "let's get out of here [and] we quit".[4]

The film was based on a story by Harry Kurnitz, not Dashiell Hammett, as the previous films had been, with the script written by Harry Kurnitz and Irving Brecher.

After difficulties with the previous films, author Dashiell Hammett was uninvolved in the production of Shadow or the two subsequent films in the series.[5]

On 22 June 1941,[6] MGM filmed exteriors for Shadow of the Thin Man in Berkeley, California, with Golden Gate Fields racetrack, which first opened on 1 February the same year,[7][8] as Greenway Park.[9] On the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, Nick and Nora Charles get "pulled over" for speeding on the upper deck of the bridge.[10]

Box office

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Shadow of the Thin Man was eagerly welcomed, coming two years after the previous outing and hitting theaters just two weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor. It would be three years before Loy would make another film (The Thin Man Goes Home in 1945) as she left Hollywood for New York, where she volunteered for the war effort with the Red Cross, as an assistant to the director of military and naval welfare.[11]

According to MGM records, the film earned $1,453,000 in the US and Canada and $848,000 elsewhere, resulting in a profit of $769,000.[12]

Nick and Nora Charles film series

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This film was the fourth of six based on the characters of Nick and Nora Charles:

References

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  1. ^ Lamparski, Richard (1985). Whatever became of ... ?. Vol. 9. Crown. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-517-55541-5.
  2. ^ The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures: Film Beginnings. R. R. Bowker. 1941. p. 2137. ISBN 9780520215214.
  3. ^ Staff writer (1944). Who's Who at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Culver City, CA: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. p. 71 – via Internet Archive.
  4. ^ Bryant, Roger. William Powell: The Life and Films. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2006. ISBN 0-7864-2602-0
  5. ^ Mooney, William H. (3 November 2014). Dashiell Hammett and the Movies. Rutgers University Press. p. 51. ISBN 978-0-8135-6254-4.
  6. ^ Finacom, Steve (22 June 2016). "Berkeley, A Look Back: Hollywood comes to Albany racetrack in 1941". The Mercury News. Retrieved 31 January 2022.
  7. ^ "Golden Gate Fields". Racecourse Directory. Retrieved 30 January 2022.
  8. ^ "Golden Gate Fields". OFF TRACK BETTING. Retrieved 30 January 2022.
  9. ^ Seal, John (30 November 2010). "Made in Berkeley: Shadow of the Thin Man". Berkeleyside. Retrieved 30 January 2022.
  10. ^ "Reliving the Glory Days of the Bay Bridge Through Hollywood Movies". KQED Inc. 11 June 2014. Retrieved 31 January 2022.
  11. ^ Belinda O. (25 May 2020). "Shadow of the Thin Man". Classic for a Reason. Retrieved 31 January 2022.
  12. ^ "The Eddie Mannix Ledger". Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study (Los Angeles).
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