Plot
This fifth entry in MGM's off-and-on "Thin Man" series maintains the high production and story values of the first four. Per the title, retired private detective Nick Charles (William Powell) pays a visit to his home town of Sycamore Springs, with wife Nora (Myrna Loy) in tow. Poor Nick is amusingly browbeaten by his parents (Harry Davenport and Lucile Watson), who wanted their boy to study medicine, is frustrated by the fact that there isn't a good stiff drink to be had in town, and is hilariously defeated by a recalcitrant hammock. In a more serious vein, Nick and Nora become involved in international intrigue while investigating the murder of a local house painter. If the identity of the murderer seems obvious today, it is only because the actor in question has played so many "surprise killers" in other films of this genre. A refreshing change of pace for the usually urbanized "Thin Man" series, The Thin Man Goes Home features such colorful suspects as Gloria DeHaven, Edward Brophy, Lloyd Corrigan, Leon Ames, and, best of all, Ann Revere as a local eccentric named "Crazy Mary". ~ Hal Erickson, RoviReview
"Every closet has a skeleton," says famed New York detective Nick Charles (William Powell), or words to that effect, and supposedly laid-back Sycamore Springs is loaded with both. Happily, Nick and Nora (Myrna Loy) are vacationing at the old homestead when the bodies begin to drop and are thus at the right time and place to catch yet another desperate killer. No one in Sycamore Springs takes death too seriously, of course, and The Thin Man Goes Home employs even more comedy than its predecessors, to the point of having the dignified Loy perform a wild jitterbug. Richard Thorpe functions as directorial traffic cop with his usual professionalism and the stock company, which includes such obvious red herrings as Anita Sharp-Bolster, Helen Vinson, Morris Ankrum, and the marvelous Anne Revere, takes care of the rest. Yet for all that, The Thin Man Goes Home is far from vintage comedy-whodunit. Perhaps the reason is the Charleses' newfound sobriety, a necessary concession to a less frivolous time, but the bloom is visibly off the rose and the star duo seems merely to be treading water. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, RoviCast
- William Powell - Nick Charles
- Myrna Loy - Nora Charles
- Gloria de Haven - Laura Ronson
- Lucile Watson - Mrs. Charles
- Anne Revere - Crazy Mary
- Harry Davenport - Dr. Bertram Charles
Credit
Edward C. Carfagno - Art Director, Cedric Gibbons - Art Director, Irene Sharaff - Costume Designer, Richard Thorpe - Director, Ralph Winters - Editor, David Snell - Composer (Music Score), Karl W. Freund - Cinematographer, Everett J. Riskin - Producer, Edwin B. Willis - Set Designer, Mildred Griffiths - Set Designer, Harry Kurnitz - Screenwriter, Robert Riskin - Screenwriter, Dwight Taylor - Screenwriter| The Thin Man (2013 Film), The Thin Man (1934 Film) | |
| The Thin Red Line (1964 Film), The Thin Red Line (1998 Film) |
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