Pun Salad

This 1936 movie is a sequel (obviously enough) to 1934's The Thin Man. It's safe to say if you liked the first one, this one's a safe bet too.

The Thin Man closed with our heroes, Nick and Nora, on a train heading off to California. This one opens with them arriving in San Francisco. They find their home has been taken over by a welcoming surprise party. Amusingly, none of the drunken revelers recognize them. Nick just wants to relax, but Nora's rich family summons them up to (my guess) their Nob Hill mansion for a stuffy dinner party, filled with dowagers and geezers.

But of course, there's mystery to be had there. Nora's cousin Selma is married to no-goodnik Robert, and Robert's gone missing. Waiting in the wings is straight-arrow George (Jimmy Stewart!), who still has feelings for Selma. The idea is to buy off Robert into a quickie divorce so that George and Selma can get hitched.

Selma asks Nick to track down Robert, and of course Nora tags along. Robert's found easily enough in a spectacularly disreputable night club, but (as it turns out) nearly everyone despises him and has some sort of motive to wish him dead. That's like wearing a red shirt in a Star Trek episode. So pretty soon, it turns into a whodunit.

There are a lot of laughs along the way. (Poor Asta finds that Mrs. Asta has been less than faithful in his absence, and that's milked for all it's worth.)