Classic Films in Focus: AFTER THE THIN MAN (1936)

After the Thin Man (1936) reunites director W.S. Van Dyke and stars William Powell and Myrna Loy for a sequel to the 1934 hit, The Thin Man, in which Nick and Nora Charles first cracked wise and drank heavily through a crime-solving adventure. We pick up right where we left off at the end of the first movie, with Nick, Nora, and Asta on a train to California, which makes the first two films a great double bill, even though they were released two years apart. After the Thin Man offers more of everything that made the first picture such a success, with the wealthy couple boozing their way through the new year and a series of homicides. Along for the ride are a number of familiar classic stars, including James Stewart, Joseph Calleia, and George Zucco, as well as Elissa Landi as Nora's troubled cousin, Selma.

Nick and Nora (Powell and Loy) arrive in San Francisco for New Year's Eve only to find that Nora's cousin, Selma (Elissa Landi), is in distress after the disappearance of her faithless husband, Robert (Alan Marshal). Nick has no trouble locating Robert and his mistress at a crowded hot spot, but then Robert turns up dead in front of Selma's house, and it looks like Selma might have killed him. Her longtime admirer, David (James Stewart), arrives on the scene to help, but Robert is just the first corpse of the mystery, and two more rapidly follow. With plenty of suspects on hand, including sketchy businessman Dancer (Joseph Calleia), jealous loser Phil (Paul Fix), and sinister Dr. Kammer (George Zucco), the police have their work cut out for them, even with Nick and Nora's help.

Much of the comedy of this outing lies in the contrast between Nick and Nora's social sets, whom we first see set against each other and then brought together thanks to Robert's shady habits. Nick knows every low-life, ex-con, and purse snatcher in town, and even the guys he sent to prison seem to like him. When Nora is greeted by a well-heeled couple in a passing car, she wryly tells Nick, "Oh, you wouldn't know them, darling. They're respectable." It turns out, however, that Nora's relations are not all that respectable themselves; they merely preserve the appearance of respectability while engaging in coercion, blackmail, adultery, and obstruction of justice. Selma's philandering husband is up to his neck in self-made trouble, but Selma's mother (Jessie Ralph) bullies and manipulates Selma into keeping quiet about his disappearance and his behavior. The rest of Nora's relatives are just antiquated bores; poor Nick has to make up both sides of the conversation when he's left alone with a table full of snoring, elderly gents after a family dinner party. It's little wonder that both he and Nora prefer Nick's more exciting acquaintances.

Asta's domestic woes feature as an odd running gag throughout the film, creating a canine version of the plot's themes of adultery, betrayal, and romance gone wrong. Asta returns from his Christmas travels to find that Mrs. Asta has produced a litter of puppies, but one of the bunch looks suspiciously like the Scottish Terrier who keeps sneaking onto the property. Asta chases his rival off repeatedly but never seems to get rid of him for good. Perhaps it's the stress of his romantic frustrations that makes Asta snatch and then eat part of a vital clue. Nick and Nora, who lavish attention on Asta, never seem to give the slightest thought to Mrs. Asta and her children, which might explain why the neglected pup, shut up in her backyard pen, has gone looking for affection elsewhere. At least the dogs don't resort to murder to solve their problems with each other, and on the whole they're better behaved than most of the movie's humans.

Powell and Loy continue the series with Van Dyke in Another Thin Man (1939) and Shadow of the Thin Man (1941) before moving to other directors for The Thin Man Goes Home (1944) and Song of the Thin Man (1947). For more of a very young Jimmy Stewart, see Wife vs. Secretary (1936) and Born to Dance (1936). Look for Elissa Landi in The Sign of the Cross (1932), By Candlelight (1933), and The Count of Monte Cristo (1934). Penny Singleton, billed as Dorothy McNulty, proves quite a scene stealer as nightclub singer Polly; she would go on to play the title character in more than two dozen Blondie films and provide the voice for Jane Jetson in the cartoon TV series, so be sure to appreciate her early appearance here.

Want to watch The Thin Man series? All of the films are currently available for streaming on FilmStruck.

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LIBELED LADY (1936)
THE GREAT ZIEGFELD (1936)

Classic Films in Focus: LIBELED LADY (1936)

Hollywood has always loved newspaper stories, especially when there's scandal and salacious tabloid gossip involved, and Libeled Lady (1936) delivers all that and more. Directed by Jack Conway, Libeled Lady is a screwball comedy times two, with four big stars in its leading roles, although William Powell and Myrna Loy steal the picture from Spencer Tracy and Jean Harlow with their perfect comic dialogue and irresistible romantic chemistry.

Tracy opens the film as newspaper man Warren Haggerty, who has landed his publication in a huge libel suit thanks to a scandalous report about wealthy socialite Connie Allenbury (Myrna Loy). Haggerty hires smooth operator Bill Chandler (William Powell) to set Connie up in a compromising situation that will derail her lawsuit. As part of the plot, Haggerty even convinces his own impatient girlfriend, Gladys (Jean Harlow), to marry Bill and then pretend outrage when Bill is caught with the unsuspecting Connie. Bill, however, throws a wrench in the plan when he actually falls for Connie, while Gladys begins to behave as if she really were Bill's jealous wife.

For classic film fans, the quadruple leads are the real draw, with Tracy and Harlow playing a rougher, more robustly hilarious pair and Powell and Loy doing their distinctively witty take on romantic comedy. The action moves along at a brisk pace. Tracy and Harlow are both very entertaining, especially when they argue, but the fireworks really go off when Powell and Loy get together. There's just something about them that the camera - and the audience - can't resist. Powell also exercises his talent for physical comedy in an especially funny scene in which Bill tries to fish his way into the good graces of Connie and her father (Walter Connolly). Much of the story is strikingly modern in the sense that it plays some rather shocking ideas for laughs; films of the 1930s often reveal a very casual attitude toward divorce, but here we also get a sham marriage and the threat of bigamy, and neither of them seems like a very big deal.

Jean Harlow gets top billing for this picture, and it's worth noting that the Harlow films - though sadly few in number - do offer some really interesting ensembles of iconic stars. Libeled Lady sets her up with two different leading men - Tracy and Powell - and gives her Loy as a female foil. In the same year, Loy also acts as a counter to Harlow in Wife vs. Secretary (1936), which presents Clark Gable and James Stewart as Harlow's two romantic opportunities. Dinner at Eight (1933), a true ensemble picture, pairs Harlow with Wallace Beery, while Bombshell (1933) sets her between Lee Tracy and Franchot Tone. Her pictures always seem to feature casts that revel in contrast, whether between Harlow and her fellow actresses or between the different men who vie for her affections. Like most of the studios of that time, MGM played mix and match with its stable of performers, but the Harlow movies almost always seem like particularly good efforts at getting the right group into the right roles.

Libeled Lady earned a Best Picture nomination at the 1937 Academy Awards, although a different Powell and Loy picture, The Great Ziegfeld (1936), took home the prize. The elegant duo gained their greatest fame playing Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man (1934) and its numerous sequels, although Powell is also justly celebrated for his performance in My Man Godfrey (1936). For more of two time Oscar winner Spencer Tracy's work in the 1930s, see Fury (1936), San Francisco (1936), and Captains Courageous (1937). Tracy and Harlow also appeared together in another 1936 picture, Riffraff, but Libeled Lady is the happier story of the two. Jean Harlow's career ended tragically in 1937, when the actress died of kidney failure at just 26 years old. See more of her with frequent costar Clark Gable in Red Dust (1932), China Seas (1935) and her last film, Saratoga (1937).

Classic Films in Focus: THE GREAT ZIEGFELD (1936)

Directed by Robert Z. Leonard, The Great Ziegfeld (1936) is a lavish musical tribute to the legendary Broadway producer, with all the whistles, bells, and gorgeous girls that Ziegfeld himself could want, even if it does takes certain liberties with the facts of Ziegfeld’s life. Hollywood had an ongoing fascination with the Ziegfeld legacy, as films like Ziegfeld Girl (1941) and Ziegfeld Follies (1945) attest, so it’s no surprise that a biopic about the showman’s ups and downs would appeal, and, indeed, the film won three Oscars in 1937, including Best Picture. Today, Oscar fans trying to see every Best Picture winner are probably the most likely viewers of this stylish but overly long production, along with William Powell devotees and those with a nostalgic interest in Ziegfeld himself.

Powell stars as the ambitious Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., who rises from promoting a sideshow strongman to producing some of the biggest shows ever seen on the Broadway stage. He constantly steals acts and borrows money from his friendly rival, Jack Billings (Frank Morgan), including the lovely singer, Anna Held (Luise Rainer), who becomes Ziegfeld’s first wife. His enthusiasm for his lady performers brings disaster to the marriage even as the shows themselves become hits, and Anna, heartbroken, divorces Ziegfeld and then loses him for good to second wife, Billie Burke (Myrna Loy). Billie stands by her husband through successes and failures, but the arrival of the Great Depression proves too much for the weary, aging producer.

Ziegfeld had been dead for only four years when the picture came out, but Billie Burke was still very much alive and interested in preserving a certain version of her late husband’s story. Ironically, the greater part of the romantic plot involves Anna and not Billie, although Anna had been dead since 1918. As with most classic Hollywood biopics, this one simplifies, elides, or simply lies about various aspects of the story, but the tragic cast of Anna’s relationship with Ziegfeld is one of the movie’s strongest points, thanks primarily to the Oscar-winning performance of Luise Rainer, who invests her character with great pathos and a birdlike fragility. Myrna Loy, who gets second billing as Billie, doesn’t actually show up until two hours in, leaving her with little time to develop her role beyond a montage of Ziegfeld family moments.

In addition to Powell, Loy, and Rainer, star watchers will find plenty of familiar faces in the movie’s large cast. Fanny Brice and Ray Bolger play themselves as members of the stage company, with Brice performing a portion of her famous “My Man” number and doing a bit of her signature comedy schtick. Frank Morgan enjoys quite a good role as Billings, and of course he’s a natural for the part of a bombastic showman, here warming up for his iconic turn as the title swindler in The Wizard of Oz (1939). Virginia Bruce has some memorable scenes as drunken starlet Audrey Dane, and Nat Pendleton is fun as the muscle-flexing Sandow. Sharp-eyed viewers will catch William Demarest, Dennis Morgan, and Reginald Owen making appearances, along with a bevy of beauties playing Ziegfeld girls (see if you can spot Lynn Bari and future First Lady Pat Nixon). Both Eddie Cantor and Will Rogers are impersonated by other actors; Rogers had died in 1935, but the real Cantor was still alive and well, and he even starred in Strike Me Pink the same year The Great Ziegfeld appeared.

Including its three wins, The Great Ziegfeld earned a total of seven Oscar nominations. Robert Z. Leonard went on to direct Pride and Prejudice (1940), Ziegfeld Girl (1941), and In the Good Old Summertime (1949). Powell and Loy have more memorable pairings in The Thin Man (1934) and its many sequels, as well as in Libeled Lady (1936). Luise Rainer won a second Best Actress Oscar the next year for The Good Earth (1937); as of August 2013 she is still living and at the age of 103 is truly an amazing example of graceful longevity. See Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, and the real Billie Burke all together in The Wizard of Oz (1939), and catch more of the delightful Fanny Brice in Be Yourself! (1930).

Classic Films in Focus: MR. PEABODY AND THE MERMAID (1948)

Mermaid movies turn up every now and then; the most famous is certainly Splash (1984), with Daryl Hannah and Tom Hanks, and among the more recent you'll find the modern tween fairy tale, Aquamarine (2006). Long before either of these films, however, dapper William Powell fell for a mermaid of his own in Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid (1948), which pitches the encounter as a mid-life crisis being experienced by Powell's character. Instead of a convertible or a human mistress, Powell's character lands a mythological maiden, much to the distress of his irritated wife. Although it certainly has fallen into obscurity, Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid is no lost masterpiece, but it's a fun little film for a quiet afternoon, and Powell fans will enjoy it just for another outing with the inimitable star.

Powell plays Arthur Peabody, a respectable Bostonian on vacation in the Caribbean after a serious illness. Peabody's convalescence is marred by the arrival of his fiftieth birthday, and he feels that his wife (Irene Hervey) is taking him for granted now that she sees him "safely" past the age of indiscretion. Her assurance is shaken, however, when Peabody accidentally lands a mermaid (Ann Blyth) and installs her in the resident fish pond. Peabody adores his ichthyoid idol, but the locals begin to wonder about his sanity. When his wife disappears, the resulting investigation threatens to ruin Peabody's romance and force him back to reality.

Powell really carries the picture, primarily because the female characters function as mere satellites to his protagonist. Ann Blyth is beautiful but mute as the mermaid (a sexist commentary on the perfect woman, no doubt), while Irene Hervey is rather shrill as the wife and Andrea King much too aggressive as the would-be paramour. That said, the scenes with the mermaid do have a magical quality of the type that viewers in 1948 might well have associated with Florida's Weeki Wachee Springs, where the famous live mermaid shows had just begun the year before. The sexual subtext of the plot is subtle enough that small children will probably enjoy watching the movie for the mermaid without noticing that it's really a story about midlife crisis and the idea of an extramarital affair as the cure for that ailment.

If you enjoy fish stories of this sort, try Miranda (1948) and The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). For more of William Powell, see The Thin Man (1934), My Man Godfrey (1936), and How to Marry a Millionaire (1953). You'll find Ann Blyth playing a much darker role in the Joan Crawford classic, Mildred Pierce (1945), but she also stars in The Great Caruso (1951) and The Helen Morgan Story (1957). See Irene Hervey in Destry Rides Again (1939), A Cry in the Night (1956), and Cactus Flower (1969). Director Irving Pichel also made the 1932 film, The Most Dangerous Game, which serves as a more intense example of his professional talent.

Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid is not currently available on DVD, but you can usually find it, along with dozens of other minor classics, on streaming sites like Netflix Instant Viewing and Amazon Instant Video.

An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.