Nat Pendleton – Movie Musings

Complex mysteries take a backseat to witty wordplay in this charming, funny comedy

Director: W.S. Van Dyke

Cast: William Powell (Nick Charles), Myrna Loy (Nora Charles), Maureen O’Sullivan (Dorothy Wynant), Nat Pendleton (Lt John Guild), Minna Gombell (Mimi Wynant Jorgenson), Porter Hall (Herbert MacCauley), Henry Wadsworth (Tommy), William Henry (Gilbert Wynant), Harold Huber (Arthur Nunheim), Cesar Romero (Chris Jorgensen), Natalie Moorhead (Julia Woolf), Edward Ellis (Clyde Wynant)

Wealthy businessmen Wynant (Edward Ellis) is missing and his daughter Dorothy (Maureen O’Sullivan) needs someone to find him: particularly as the police suspect Wynant is a killer after his mistress Julia (Natalie Moorhead) is found dead, under suspicion of stealing $25k from him. Can she persuade debonair, playboy detective Nick Charles (William Powell) to put the martinis aside and take a break from his never-ending banter with wife Nora (Myrna Loy) to help unpick this mystery?

But of course she can, in this hugely enjoyable murder mystery. Inspired by a Dashiell Hammett novel (but you feel only loosely). In fact, Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich’s script (with the encouragement of WS Van Dyke) focused a lot less on the mystery and a lot more on the sparky interplay between Nick and Nora. The Thin Man is really a crackerjack, joke-a-minute screwball comedy with a murder loosely attached. If anything, it feels more like a comedic Agatha Christie Tommy-and-Tuppence yarn – it even has a final scene where Nick gathers the suspects together over dinner to explain exactly what happened.

Not that Nicks’ actor, William Powell, particularly followed the complex plot details. But then I’m not sure anyone making The Thin Man expected anyone else to either. For starters, most viewers came away with the impression that the debonair Powell was the title’s thin man, rather than Wynant (the original crime relied on the victim being thin) – and the producers eagerly embraced that misconception, with a host of sequels following, each titled with a twist on the thin man.

Besides, the viewers were here for the banter not the crime drama. The Thin Man was shot at a lightening pace by Van Dyke (earning his nickname “one-take Woody”) over no more than twelve days. The reason being that was the length of time Myrna Loy was available for, and her chemistry with Powell was second-to-none. And you can tell it in the film, which has a loose, improvisational quality between the two leads who are often essentially fooling around on camera with each other, pulling faces and telling off-the-cuff jokes far more than spending time actually cracking the case.

And that’s where the joy of the picture really is. It’s huge fun to see the two of them playfully mock hit each other before reverting to affectionate hugs when Lt Guild turns to look at them. Or slapstick business around an icebag to the head for a hung-over Nora. The sort of film where we spent several minutes watching Nick playfully shoot balloons off a Christmas tree with an air rifle from ridiculous positions (until he finally hits a window). Both actors capture perfectly the mood of jaunty, cocktail fuelled, archly witty fun that really powers the film, like Noel Coward goes investigating.

Both actors are at the top of their game. Powell’s casual air of permanent intoxication doesn’t dim his razor-sharp cleverness. Somehow, he manages to remain smooth and stylish, even as he pulls a parade of silly faces. It’s a hugely entertaining, charismatic performance that bounces brilliantly off Myrna Loy’s equally fine performance of arch comic skill. Like Powell, Loy matches playful silliness with sexy sensuality and a winning way with a comic line. Van Dyke encourages both of them to carry out as much natural kidding around as possible (there’s even a moment when Powell drops slightly out of frame, the camera not keeping up with his off-the-cuff japery).

The two of them are a perfect fit for a pair constantly in a state of inebriation. Nora even orders six martinis (all to be lined up) alongside Nick’s one when she finds out he’s that many drinks ahead of her. Nick’s first reaction to be woken up in the middle of the night is reaching for a drink. Despite this, the two of them are sublimely cool under fire (literally) as only Golden-era Hollywood types can be. In fact, being held at gun point in the middle of the night feels like only an inconvenience in the way of a nightcap.

In fact, what’s really striking about The Thin Man is how it shows a real marriage of equals. They may bicker at points – and Nick may joke he married Nora for her money – but they work as a fully unified team. If one has a sharp line, the other an equally sharper comeback and if they make decisions they make it as a team. And, of course, they still have the hots for each other (the film ends with a classic cutaway to them climbing into the same bunk, hammering it home with their dog Asta covering her eyes and a cut to a train steaming away on the track). No wonder audiences absolutely soaked up the energy: just years after the end of prohibition, here was a fun-loving couple all about enjoying every inch of the pleasure’s life had to offer.

The whole tone of The Thin Man is about coating murder mystery in fun. From party guests who tip into the comically ridiculous (my favourite being a melancholic businessman who keeps weeping at the Charles’ Christmas Bash because he feels he needs to call his Momma) to an over-enthusiastic dog (Asta, played by celebrity mutt Skippy) whose whims constantly butt into the Charles’ never-ending drinking, flirting and banter. I love William Henry’s Gilbert, who never moves without a large reference book and uses a parade of out-of-context terms he clearly doesn’t understand from Oedipal to thinking sexagenarian is a sex addict to mispronouncing sadist as sad-est.

With all this background colour, no wonder most people didn’t really give a damn who did the thin man in (or even who the hell the thin man was). We were here for the fun, for Powell and Loy and for the jokes and banter. With Van Dyke encouraging a freeform style from start to finish (Powell’s first scene was his first practice, unknowingly filmed, his relaxed comedy so perfect Van Dyke printed it straight away), The Thin Man is wild, entertaining and funny ride which continues to entertain as viewers try to stop giggling to work out its elaborately obscure mystery.

Luise Rainer and William Powell bring the life of The Great Ziegfeld to life in this decent-but-not-great Best Picture winner

Director: Robert Z Leonard

Cast: William Powell (Florenz Ziegfeld Jnr), Myrna Loy (Billie Burke), Luise Rainer (Anna Held), Frank Morgan (Jack Billings), Fannie Brice (Herself), Virginia Bruce (Audrey Dane), Reginald Owen (Sampson), Ray Bolger (Himself), Ernest Coassart (Sidney), Joseph Cawthorn (Dr Ziegfeld), Nat Pendleton (The Great Sandow)

I’d always been led to believe The Great Ziegfeld was one of the low points in Best Picture history – that the Oscar had gone to a plotless, over-long, empty mess. So, watching this film for the first time, I was pleasantly surprised. The Great Ziegfeld may be flawed, but it’s not as bad as all that. In some places it’s even pretty good.

Florenz Ziegfeld Jnr (William Powell) is a showman with big dreams. From the Chicago World Fair of 1893, where his show features strong-man The Great Sandow (Nat Pendleton) – lifting a massive pair of dumb bells inside of each is a “Dumb Belle” (geddit?!) – Ziegfeld heads towards New York. There he puts on a series of variety shows, The Ziegfeld Follies, crammed with popular entertainers and gorgeous babes. Along the way he spends money like water, marries star Anna Held (Luise Rainer), cheats on her a lot (although the film handles this coyly) and finds love with star Billie Burke (Myrna Loy – the real Burke grudgingly agreed she was too old to play herself).

Watching The Great Ziegfeld you can see how it influenced so many later films. A witty, show-piece crammed crowd-pleaser about a impresario, its essentially the grandfather of The Greatest Showman. It’s unpretentious and easy-going – but also impossibly long, far too long for its slight story. It’s sprawling, puffed-up and the musical numbers are often mundane and tedious – but it, just about, manages to stay entertaining.

In real life Ziegfeld was a chancer with a roving eye. He left a mountain of debt and his genius was at least as much about promotion as it was art. You can see why Hollywood has a soft-spot for him: he was all about spectacle (a running gag has him always wanting “higher steps”, a neat short-hand for making things bigger). His rough edges (the affairs and the financial chicanery) are filed down as the film’s Ziegfeld is a charmer with a Wodehousian wit, cheeky and naughty but always a gentleman.

William Powell is perfect casting, and a big part of the film’s charm is tied up in his winningly (and deceptively) casual performance. Powell turns the role into a personality part, smoothly underplaying with a wink to the camera. He delivers the various bon mots with a real skill and provides nearly all the film’s pace and energy and a big barrel of its sense of fun.

He sits at the centre of a film that has genuine moments of directorial flair from Robert Z Leonard. There are some great tracking shots and he handles the ‘acting’ scenes very well – a scene with Ziegfeld chatting with Will Rogers and Fanny Brice (playing herself) is worth the price of admission alone. The performers mostly bounce effectively off each other.

Leonard also gets emotional impact from Ziegfeld’s late romance with Burke (a sequence of the two of them chatting, coyly holding hands is very well done) and creates a superb series of visuals to close the film (a shot of the ageing Ziegfeld sitting in his chair, staring at his name in lights over his theatre, is a wonderful summary of the man’s life – and maybe, when his hand drops down releasing a flower, it even gave Welles a bit of inspiration for Kane’s death five years later).

When The Great Ziegfeld focuses on Powell’s lightness of touch, and character-led moments (Frank Morgan is also great fun as Ziegfeld’s bombastic, long-suffering rival) it works really well. What has suffered over time – and today feel like its weakest parts – are those heavily praised in 1936.

MGM marketed this as the most expensive film ever made, the money splurged on those massive musical numbers, with scores of extras and enormous sets. The centre-piece is the “A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody” number, featuring countless extras on a massive rotating “wedding-cake” set, 175 spiral steps high. Like Ziegfeld’s shows it’s all about the cost, spectacle and size. And they are not even 1% as interesting as watching Astaire and Rogers tap dance in a marquee in Top Hat.

The film’s numerous musical numbers often feel like dull products of yesteryear. Over-long, over-extended, shot to squeeze the set into frame rather than focusing on skill or grace. These numbers – some of which I admit I fast-forwarded through – pad out the running time but contribute nothing to either story or entertainment factor. If anything, you are desperate to get back to Powell’s skilled playing of the biographical scenes, rather than sitting through another over-ripe number.

Similarly much of the acting has aged less well. Myrna Loy is strangely uncomfortable as Burke (perhaps all to aware the real Burke was just off camera). Luise Rainer won the first of her two consecutive Oscars – but her performance is extremely over-played, utterly lacking in nuance. Her famous “telephone” scene (heartbroken, she calls Ziegfeld to congratulate him on his new marriage) was hailed as great acting, but today looks mannered and overblown.

But despite all these flaws – mundane and boring musical numbers, a lack of spark and pace – there is actually a fair bit of wit and charm. Its early sequences – which focus on Powell and Nat Pendleton’s witty turn as Sandow – are surprisingly light and engaging. The moments where the film relaxes and isn’t straining to impress are engaging and fun. There is a decent 90-minute Astaire-Rogers film straining to get out here, crushed under the weight of the Ziegfeld/MGM grandeur. It’s entertaining – better than you might have heard – but can’t hold a candle to the great Hollywood musicals of yesteryear, its charm spread very thin.