After the Thin Man

Urbane Nick and Nora Charles (Willem Powell and Myrna Loy) return home to San Francisco and investigate a missing husband.

After the Thin Man is an enjoyable enough sequel to the superb Thin Man, which aims to correct the first film’s biggest flaw: the lack of likable characters outside of Powell and Loy.

Who better to correct a flaw like this than James Stewart? With his usual easy charm Stewart gives Powell and Loy some breathing room and prevents the movie from grinding to a halt when they’re not on screen.

Unfortunately a lot of the edge seems to have been taken off Powell and Loy’s characters, with Loy being toned down the most. The first movie found them going drink for drink, but here Loy hardly touches a drop. Granted, the reason is explained at the end, but in reality After the Thin Man suffers from sequel jitters, where the filmmakers systematically try to recreate the magic of the original movie but end up missing what made the original so great in the first place.

That’s not to say After the Thin Man is bad; far from it. It’s got several great scenes and more laugh-out-loud moments than the first movie, just not that same intangible quality that made the first one a classic.