I love Woody Van Dyke's films, I enjoy Dashiell Hammett's stories and I'm a massive William Powell fan - he might just have been the coolest actor of the 30s. This film however, like the first one leaves me totally flat.
Any light comedy romance featuring detectives made after 1934 seems to get called a 'THIN MAN rip-off' as though that film were some sacred and venerated holy work, the perfect picture of which it is sacrilegious to criticise and anything which tries to copy it can only be unworthy and almost blasphemous. I'm clearly some sort of heretic because I think THE THIN MAN is best described as 'ok' AFTER THE THIN MAN is just more of the same -again it's ok but nothing special or too dissimilar to some of the so-called rip-offs. Personally I liked the couple of films Joan Blondell did with Mervyn Douglas - they were much more fun.
Maybe it's because I have an irrational dislike of Myrna Loy that I liked this as little as the first one but even Mr Cool himself just seems a bit smug rather than amusing - he's not quite his usual likeable self. It's pleasant enough, it's watchable but it's not what could be considered funny.
Any light comedy romance featuring detectives made after 1934 seems to get called a 'THIN MAN rip-off' as though that film were some sacred and venerated holy work, the perfect picture of which it is sacrilegious to criticise and anything which tries to copy it can only be unworthy and almost blasphemous. I'm clearly some sort of heretic because I think THE THIN MAN is best described as 'ok' AFTER THE THIN MAN is just more of the same -again it's ok but nothing special or too dissimilar to some of the so-called rip-offs. Personally I liked the couple of films Joan Blondell did with Mervyn Douglas - they were much more fun.
Maybe it's because I have an irrational dislike of Myrna Loy that I liked this as little as the first one but even Mr Cool himself just seems a bit smug rather than amusing - he's not quite his usual likeable self. It's pleasant enough, it's watchable but it's not what could be considered funny.