The Thin Man (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The thin man |
| Original title | The Thin Man |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1934 |
| length | 87 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | WS Van Dyke |
| script |
Albert Hackett , Frances Goodrich |
| production | Hunt Stromberg |
| music | William ax |
| camera | James Wong Howe |
| cut | Robert Kern |
| occupation | |
| |
The thin man (original title: The Thin Man ; alternative title also: The Unfindable and Mordache "thin man" ) is an American crime comedy from 1934 based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett . The film was so successful that five sequels followed by 1947.
action
Nick Charles has drawn the proverbial big lot: The successful detective marries the elegant millionaire heiress Nora in order to dedicate his time primarily to drinking, ironic battles with his wife and their dog, Mr. Asta. He has not solved a single case in distant San Francisco for four years , but on a visit to New York , Nora's curiosity is aroused by a mysterious case.
The scientist Clyde Wynant wanted to go on a journey, but did not tell anyone the destination. His lawyer Herbert MacCauley also asked him in vain about the travel destination. He wanted to be back in town for Christmas to attend his daughter Dorothy's wedding. Shortly before his departure, there was a dispute with his secretary and lover Julia Wolf, who stole the securities he wanted to give his daughter Dorothy for the wedding from Clyde's safe and sold them "for him". Of the 50,000 dollars she had hoped for, she could only give him half, as she allegedly did not receive any more for the papers. Only with Julia does Clyde stay in contact during his trip and requests the necessary money through her.
A short time later, Wynant's divorced wife Mimi, who is now married to the opaque Chris Jorgenson, wants to visit Julia Wolf. But she finds Julia murdered. In her hand she holds a necklace from Clyde, which Mimi takes; because she wants to protect her ex-husband. While Nick pretends not to be interested in the case, not only Nora urges him to take over the case, but soon Clyde's family and the police too. When the police informer Nunheim is also murdered, Nick gives in to the insistence. He doesn't believe that Clyde committed the murders and goes to the scientist's closed factory. Here his dog Asta draws his attention to freshly poured concrete and a short time later the police find another body. While bits of clothing point to a previous enemy of Clyde's, a splinter in his leg makes Nick certain that he found Clyde's body.
He invites all suspects to a big dinner. There appear: the gangster Morelli, Clyde's daughter Dorothy with her fiancé Tommy, Clyde's son Gilbert, Clyde's ex-wife Mimi, the police inspector, Nunheim's girlfriend, Mimi's new husband Chris with his unknown wife and other gentlemen, including Clyde's lawyer MacCaulay. When Nick says he saw Clyde the day before (although he does not mention that it was just his corpse), Mimi claims to have met her ex-husband as well. This false statement leads Nick to a daring deduction of the circumstances.
In the end it turns out that MacCaulay Clydes is the killer. He and Julia cheated out of her money, whereupon Clyde started looking for Julia's accomplice. MacCaulay, who was afraid of going to prison, shot Clyde and then tried to cash in more money on the ignorant Julia with forged letters, which allegedly came from Clyde. When Mimi announces her visit to Julia to talk to her about Clyde, MacCaulay also shoots Julia for fear of betrayal. Nunheim, in turn, who is at the hotel door at the time, sees MacCaulay leaving and from then on blackmails him with his knowledge. When the money was handed over, MacCaulay also shot him. He finally wants to direct the trail to Clyde and finally turns to Mimi, who is supposed to testify to having seen Clyde with a false testimony, for which she receives money. When Nick then tells of his "meeting" with Clyde, Mimi sticks to MacCaulay's instructions and convicts him. And when MacCaulay tries to fire a gun at the table, Nick knocks him down.
A little later, Nick and Nora drive back from hectic New York to San Francisco, together with the newlyweds Dorothy and Tommy.
meaning
The conventionally structured, if in part quite elegantly constructed, plot shouldn't hide the fact that this film was of enormous relevance not only for its genre, but also for cinema of the 30s as a whole. The significance results to a large extent from the role of Myrna Loys, who confronted the viewer at the time with a completely new and unconventional type of woman who ran counter to the ideals of the time in a charming way. Nora is intellectually equal to her husband and shows this in a sarcastic, hypothermic way with which she simply ignores the eccentric behavior of her husband. Symptomatic of the exceptional position of this character are aspects such as the young woman's considerable alcohol consumption, her astute deductions and the elegance that characterizes her behavior. This is also reflected in the relationship with Nick: The relationship is always ironic and can be characterized as absolutely equal, which clearly runs counter to the emotional-patriarchal clichés of early cinema. Overall, the relationship between the married couple is the core of the film, but the plot can almost be described as irrelevant.
Another important aspect is the continuation of the hardboiled genre from which his literary model originates. Nick corresponds to the old clichés from this genre in many ways , but this is ironically broken by his family situation and his tendency to be eccentric . This makes the formulaic nature of the hardboiled tradition clear (as in a reduced form in the spaghetti westerns for the western genre ) without the old models disappearing. The typology that characterizes many of these films gives way to an individual characterization that outlines an important aspect of modern cinema.
The Thin Man was Hammett's fifth and final novel. After that he only wrote commissioned works such as the screenplay for “Thin Man Case 2”.
synchronization
The German dubbed version was created in 1969 on behalf of ZDF at Beta-Technik, Munich. Ursula Zell wrote the dialogue book, Wolfgang Schick was responsible for the dubbing .
| role | actor | speaker |
|---|---|---|
| Nick Charles | William Powell | Friedrich Schoenfelder |
| Nora Charles | Myrna Loy | Rosemarie Fendel |
| Dorothy Wynant | Maureen O'Sullivan | Lis Verhoeven |
| Inspector John Guild | Nat Pendleton | Jürgen Scheller |
| Mimi Wynant Jorgenson | Minna Gombell | Sigrid Lagemann |
| Herbert MacCauley | Porter Hall | Manfred Schott |
| Tommy, Dorothy's fiancé | Henry Wadsworth | Claus Wilcke |
| Julia Wolf | Natalie Moorhead | Elisabeth Ried |
| Gilbert Wynant | William Henry | Gig Malzacher |
| Arthur Nunheim | Harold Huber | Kurt E. Ludwig |
| Christian Jorgenson | Cesar Romero | Hannes Gromball |
| Clyde Wynant | Edward Ellis | Ernst Kuhr |
| Joe Morelli | Edward Brophy | Benno Hoffmann |
| Accountant Tanner | Cyril Thornton | Thomas Reiner |
criticism
The film-dienst described the film as “an intelligent combination of a refreshing, frivolous salon comedy and an exciting, fast-paced crime film, excellently played, enriched with lively, amusing dialogues”. The evangelical film observer also has a positive opinion of the film : "Detective comedy from 1934, which provides excellent, exciting entertainment."
Awards
The film received four Oscar nominations in 1935 , namely in the categories of Best Picture , Best Director , Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay , but could not win any award.
In 1997 he was inducted into the National Film Registry .
Sequels
From 1936 to 1947 a total of five sequels were shot with the same cast of the main characters, which at least partially reproduced the class and charm of the original film:
- Thin Man, 2. Case ( After the Thin Man , alternative title: After the Thin Man , 1936)
- Thin Man, 3rd Case ( Another Thin Man , alternative title: Noch ein Dünner Mann , 1939)
- Shadow of the Thin Man ( Shadow of the Thin Man , 1941)
- The Thin Man Goes Home ( The Thin Man Goes Home , 1944)
- The Song of the Thin Man ( Song of the Thin Man , 1947)
In the first film in the series, the "thin man" originally meant the murdered scientist Clyde Wynant. It was only later that the name was transferred to the detective Nick Charles and thus became a distinguishing feature of the entire film series.
The appearance of the detective couple Dick and Dora Charleston in the crime parody A corpse for dessert is a tribute to The Thin Man .
literature
- Dashiell Hammett : The Skinny Man . Novel (Original title: The Thin Man) . German by Tom Knoth . Complete Novels, Volume 5, 20th Edition. Diogenes, Zurich 2004, 231 pages, ISBN 3-257-20295-4 .
- Georg Seeßlen : Screwball Intermezzo: The series of "Thin Man" films. In another: Murder in the cinema. History and mythology of the detective film . Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1981, ISBN 3-499-17396-4 , pp. 189-194.
Web links
- The Thin Man in theInternet Movie Database(English)
- The Thin Man atRotten Tomatoes(English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ The thin man in the German dubbing files
- ↑ Murder thing 'Duenner Mann' (1934) in Arne Kaul's synchronous database ( memento of the original from February 1, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; Retrieved October 18, 2008
- ↑ The thin man. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Evangelical Press Association Munich, Review No. 93/1969
