Vitals

William Powell as Nick Charles, retired private detective

Sycamore Springs, Summer 1944

Film: The Thin Man Goes Home
Release Date: January 25, 1945
Director: Richard Thorpe
Costume Supervisor: Irene

Background

Although it isn’t one of the better films in the Thin Man series, The Thin Man Goes Home offers us a glimpse of Nick Charles’ pre-detective home life in “Sycamore Springs”, an idyllic small town somewhere in New England, in an attempt to ground the man we’d before known only as a wise-cracking, hard-drinking urbanite.

The Thin Man Goes Home, released in early 1945 when the world was still at war, was the fifth in the six-film series that had rapidly began losing momentum. After a strong start, each movie progressively lost the trademark wit of the original, replacing it with family-friendly hijinks and – most notably – less booze. Nick Charles’ shady Greek origins (the family’s original surname was Charalambides in Hammett’s novel) were replaced by a WASPy neighborhood in small town U.S.A. Although it is curious that Nick and Nora leave their young son at home, especially given the series’ new direction in favor of family. Continue reading →