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Powell and Loy portray husband and wife Nick and Nora Charles. The movies never show or explain how these two met and this is both a wise script choice and a testament to Powell and Loy's ease with each other. They handle the charm and banter so well there's never any question they were meant to be together. Indeed, if anything, they have the easy conversational flow of people who have been married for decades (and have crack dialogue writers, to boot). He's an ex-detective who now prefers a life of martinis and scotches to corpses and bullets. She is a socialite who is attracted to the rough-and tumble-life Nick used to lead and is pleasantly piqued at all the reminders of his former life they seem to encounter on both coasts and all points in-between. A wonderfully handled running joke in the series is the omnipresence of both ex-cons Nick knows from his professional experience and ex-girlfriends he knows from his bachelor experience.

Like Jessica Fletcher many years later, Nick and Nora have a knack at finding themselves at the center of mysteries and murders even when they would much prefer to stay out of trouble. After the Thin Man is set just days after the end of the first film as Nick and Nora head home to San Francisco via the rails for a quiet New Year's Eve celebration. Solitude is not meant to be their fate, however, and the first reel of the sequel plays like a sly commentary on the success of The Thin Man, or at least a victory lap for the unexpectedly positive reception of the franchise generator.

Upon their arrival at the train station, reporters, autograph seekers, and people on the street congratulating them on the case they have just solved beset Nick and Nora. This all culminates in a sustained piece of insanity when the pair arrive at home for peace and quiet only to find a "surprise party" being thrown in their honor with all the attendees oblivious to who is now in their midst. Nick and Nora blithely give themselves into all the music and chaos and even if the whole of this first 20 minutes doesn't contribute to the development of the story, it admirably performs one of the key requirements of a sequel: give the audience more of what they loved from the first film. It also works a nice reversal from the structure of The Thin Man, where the Charles' didn't show up until after the mystery in that film had already been established.

With barely time to down more than a few drinks, Nick and Nora are called to dinner with her family where her cousin Selma is distraught over the recent disappearance of her husband, Robert, who is given to philandering and frequent benders. He is found but shortly thereafter winds up dead and several more corpses litter S.F. apartments and basements before the murderer is unmasked. The murder plot, however, is little more than a clothesline for the interplay of the duo.

Powell underplays everything, which seems to be the key to why Nick is so charming, in spite of the fact that his constant drinking should render him blotto more often than not or at the least, considerably hung over for the duration. In ATTM, he also gets to show off his detecting skills during a bravura wordless and nearly silent sequence as he breaks into a pair of apartments looking for clues both obvious and otherwise. Primarily, though, Powell allows Nick to inhabit the realm of the charming souse and keeps his performance carefully balanced between droll amusement and mild comic irritation.

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