The Thin Man

Nick Charles, a former detective, has settled into a comfortable life of drinking and leisure with his wealthy wife, Nora, in San Francisco. Their holiday is interrupted when Dorothy Wynant, the daughter of Nick's former client, an eccentric inventor named Clyde Wynant, asks for help locating her missing father. A murder connected to the case draws Nick back into investigating, and Nora, intrigued by the mystery, encourages him to take it on. As they question Wynant's relatives, friends and business associates, a complicated tangle of motives emerges.

W. S. Van Dyke directed the film, which was adapted from Dashiell Hammett's novel by screenwriters Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, with Hunt Stromberg producing for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Cosmopolitan Productions. It followed Van Dyke's Tarzan the Ape Man and arrived in the same year as Manhattan Melodrama and Laughing Boy, well before After the Thin Man. William Powell and Myrna Loy lead as Nick and Nora, supported by Maureen O'Sullivan, Nat Pendleton, Minna Gombell and Porter Hall among a credited cast of 69. The film runs 91 minutes and earned 1 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds a critics' rating of 8.8 out of 10 from 47 reviews, while on TMDB it has a 7.5 out of 10 from 555 votes, showing stronger approval from critics than from the wider audience.