Released 10 years after the first Thin Man movie, The Thin Man Goes Home is one of the most enjoyable of the series.  Nick and Nora visit his parents in Nick's boyhood town, Sycamore Springs.  Of course there's a murder, and of course Nick is talked into investigating -- and winds up impressing his patronizing father at last.

The familiar formula of suspicious characters includes Crazy Mary (Anne Revere) who'd just as soon crack someone on the head as talk to him, a pair of nervous "art collectors" played by Leon Ames and Helen Vinson, and Gloria DeHaven as an overly-dramatic drama student ( "I feel it here. . . inside").  Venerable pros Harry Davenport and Lucille Watson add considerable presence as Nick's parents.

As always, it's the Powell/Loy chemistry that makes the movie.  He is intrigued when she is trapped on a dance floor with a wild jitterbugging partner, his eyes growing wide as she is flung, twisted and twirled in the air.  Her on-going attempts at setting up a folding lawn chair next to his hammock could have gone unnoticed in anyone else's hands -- but Powell's "Having trouble with that?", and her expression when it takes him 10 seconds to ready said chair says it all.  In 1944 this movie was good escapism for war-weary audiences, and it remains entertaining today.