The New Pictures

Another Thin Man (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). Made as a quickie in 14 days by Producer Hunt Stromberg and Director W. S. Van Dyke II, the first Thin Man revealed some surprising facts:

> Suave William Powell made a better raffish detective-husband than a romantic lover.

>Exotic Myrna Loy made a better wife than a siren.

> A wire-haired terrier named Asta (formerly Skippy) was the best canine actor since Rin Tin Tin.

> To the incredulous delight of U. S. cinemillions, two people could be in love though married.

>The Thin Man formula (exciting murder mystery plus fast, racy dialogue plus an equable, wisecracking, Scotch-bibbing married couple plus real people in a weird jumbling together of underworld and overworld) was good for several more workings.

Another Thin Man is the third working.* Shot in 36 days with extreme care by the same producer and director, again using a script by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, it brought back William Powell as smart Detective Nick Charles, Myrna Loy as Nora, his imperturbable wife, Asta (cranky and snappy after a nervous breakdown) as their dog. It had the Thin Man's pace, bounce and snappy dialogue, exciting murder and air of amiable dipsomania. Nick and Nora take the pandemonium that passes for their domestic life with the same unquenchable good humor, poise, charm and thirst. But the spontaneity seems a little forced, the pace, jokes and charm a little grimly predetermined.

Nick Charles reluctantly interrupts his drinking this time when guests of harumphing Colonel Burr McFay (C. Aubrey Smith) are awakened by a shot to find that the old man's throat has been cut. Suspect are various heirs and retainers of McFay and a clammy Cuban (Sheldon Leonard) who has perfected the cutest blackmailing trick of the year. He dreams twice that people die. If he dreams it a third time they do. So he assesses people to keep him from dreaming. By the time Nick has spent a quiet week catching the murderer, he has had a knife thrown at him, been shot at and had his baby snatched. Nora has found out about Nick's affair with a lighthouse keeper's daughter and inspired the love of an aging gigolo.

Hilarious scene: Nick's underworld friends bringing their babies (about two dozen) to sing Happy Birthday to Nick Jr. When they proffer baloney, salami, beer and pop for refreshments, Nick sends for ice cream. "It will be up in a minute," he says. Queasy Nora's ageless comeback: "You're telling me?"

Tower of London (Universal) solves the problem of what to do next with a popular monster (Boris Karloff), who has already been deranged (The Lost Patrol), mummified (The Mummy), roasted alive (Frankenstein), resurrected (The Son of Frankenstein). Horror-man Karloff is now introduced to one of Hollywood's most accomplished villains (Basil Rathbone) in the cellars of the Tower of London circa 1480. There, amidst moaning victims, clanking chains and chopping blocks, Villain Rathbone (the crookbacked Richard, Duke of Gloucester) shows Monster Karloff (Mord, the club-footed constable of the Tower) how to satisfy an active homicidal mania by murdering the four candidates who are preventing Duke Richard from becoming King Richard III of England. By the time Mord and Richard have killed Henry VI, the Duke of Clarence, Edward V and his brother, they are killed themselves at the battle of Bosworth.

For this chronicle of wasted crime, Producer-Director Rowland Lee and his Scripter-Brother Robert N. Lee claim they boned through 350 volumes of British history. The picture suggests that they might have achieved the same result with less labor by referring to Charles Dickens' A Child's History of England, since, as history, this period thriller is considerably less authentic than its elaborately spooky reproductions of London's Tower. But the battles of Tewkesbury and Bosworth with nickering horses and the knightly clang of iron against iron set a new high for realistic racket that should deafen the most demanding.

Best shot: Richard and Mord drowning the Duke of Clarence, Richard's brother, in a vast butt of malmsey--bibulous Clarence's favorite tipple--with beautifully bubblous sound effects.

*Second and hardest working: After the Thin Man.

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