The Late Show

THE LATE SHOW (1977) ***1/2 Art Carney, Lily Tomlin, Bill Macy, Eugene Roche, Joanna Cassidy, Howard Duff. Hommage to pulp fiction/film noir gumshoe flicks ala "The Big Sleep" with comedy instead of menace with Carney as over-the-hill private dick hired by loony New Age Tomlin wanting her kidnapped kitty back only to find herself neck deep in murder and adultery in the underbelly of sunny LA. Kooky pairing of the two leads is the films' appeal as well as for its affinity for the genre thanks to writer/director Robert Benton's right on the money approach.

Here's a wonderful, offbeat little film directed by Robert Benton, who directed Kramer vs. Kramer, and Nobody's Fool. He also wrote the screenplay, which received an Oscar nomination, so I guess it wasn't ignored entirely when it came out. Critics often dismiss The Late Show with a tart "Well, it's no Chinatown" (which came out three years earlier). That's too bad because it's a sly, engaging, funny detective thriller in its own right that manages to rise above the constraints of the genre and reach some memorable emotional heights along the way.

Art Carney plays Ira Welles, an over-the-hill private eye with a hearing aid, a bad leg, and a bleeding ulcer. It's almost as if Benton said: "hey, what would happen if Phillip Marlowe were still alive and kicking and living in the seedy part of Los Angeles in the mid-'70s?" Making the hero a senior citizen makes even more sense in the noir context than having him be the usual tough guy in the peak of health.

Things start off with a bang, or at least a whimper, when his partner Harry shows up with a bullet hole in his stomach (a la Maltese Falcon). Ira shows us what he's all about right away when tells his soon to be dead colleague: "Sorry you're going off, pal. You've been real good company." Ira is a throwback who spends serious amounts of time at the racetrack, lives in a boarding house, gets everywhere by bus (in LA?), calls women "Dolly," and values notions of honor and loyalty to one's partner above all else.

This world runs smack against the more permissive, loopy, go with-the-flow attitudes of the late-Sixties, early-Seventies, in the guise of Margo (Lily Tomlin). Margo is a laconic blatherskite who burns incense, lives in a room full of batik and macramé, and listens to meditation tapes. She goes to Ira for help when her cat Winston is kidnapped by a disgruntled fence whom she neglected to pay. Ira refuses to get involved with such nonsense until he realizes the catnapper also had something to with the death of his partner.

This kicks off an appropriately convoluted noir plot of epic complexity that involves murderous fences, infidelity, blackmail, and a steadily mounting body count. But the plot takes a backseat to the subtly changing, often touching relationship between the two lead characters. These two seemingly polar opposites actually have a lot in common.

They are both misfits who have constructed elaborate lies that they inhabit. Ira tells Margo that he's always been a loner, yet he spends his evenings playing canasta with his landlady, risks his life to find his partner's killer, and finds himself slowly warming up to Margo despite her air of flaky desperation. Margo flits from one identity to the next. One minute she's an actress, the next a dress designer, and the next a talent agent. In reality, she's mule for a two-bit fence and has to deal grass on the side to make ends meet. "I only do it to get my shrink paid," she tells a disapproving Ira.

Art Carney and Lily Tomlin play the push-me-pull-you dynamic between the two for all they're worth. Carney has a terrific moment when he collapses in pain due to ulcer pain and tells Margo not to take him to the hospital. In Tomlin's hands, Margo is one of the great screen neurotics, yet she's much savvier and sharper than she seems at first, and is able to finally rise to face the challenge of some pretty hairy situations. The Late Show is a real gem from the last truly great decade of American movies.

Inventive blend of humor and gumshoe. Carney's an over-the-hill keyhole peeper, while new-age Tomlin can't settle on any identity. All in all, it's a great send-up of all those tough-guy private dicks of the 1940's. But don't try to follow the murder plot, which has more little twists than a mountain road. Actually, more than a whodunit, the story's about two lonely people managing to overcome personality and generational differences. There's that, plus hints that old Ira's (Carney) ulcers may have failed, but the glands are still working.

As the odd couple, Carney and Tomlin shine in low-key fashion, which is as engaging as it is offbeat. There were a lot of these Chandler-Hammett spoofs at the time, (e.g. The Black Bird {1975}), but none are more imaginative than this-- after all, how many tough guys ride buses to work, or are hired to find a missing cat. Then too how many other send-ups can stand on their own apart from the spoofing format. Cleverly, this one can—as a poignant character study that somehow works. Kudoes Robert Benton for coming up with a truly novel approach to familiar subject matter. The result is both amusing and touching.

In The Late Show Art Carney may have created the most broken down action hero ever on the big screen. In fact his role here is in keeping with the Oscar he won playing irascible old codgers in Harry And Tonto and whom he would continue to play for the rest of his big screen career. The man truly reinvented himself after being so identified as Ed Norton of sewer repair on The Honeymooners.

Probably at the height of the noir era in film post World War II Carney could have done private eye roles like Humphrey Bogart and Alan Ladd. But now he's retired from the business has a bad leg, wears a hearing aid and rents a room from an indulgent landlady Ruth Nelson.

Until his old partner still in the game comes to him with a fatal bullet in his chest. An inside joke if you will because the partner is played by Howard Duff who was Sam Spade for years on radio. And at Duff's funeral he meets quirky former actress Lily Tomlin who was Duff's last client. She hired Duff to find her missing cat.

The cat however is key and before the film ends several of the cast wind up dead. It's a well assembled ensemble who support Carney and Tomlin. Joanna Cassidy as the femme fatale, Eugene Roche as a fence, Bill Macy as a bartender/tipster who tries to play both ends, and John Considine are all at the top of their game.

But Carney is a wonder, he's got great chemistry with Tomlin and he's got great moves as well. Wish I had some of them.

The saddest thing about Robert Benton's "The Late Show" is that it has gotten lost in the shuffle when discussing the great movies of the nineteen seventies. This is a terrific piece of film noir that is paying homage to the great detective mysteries of the forties. Benton's sharp screenplay is sensational in creating colorful, likable, and original characters. Benton beautifully connects all the points of the complex plot by the end, leaving the viewer completely satisfied.

The all around acting in the film is terrific, with Lily Tomlin supplying comedic support to Art Carney's lead detective Ira Wells. The film however belongs to the late, great Art Carney. Carney gives quite simply an amazing tour de force performance as the aging Ira Wells. He is a sad and lonely character who is socially awkward yet surprisingly tough. He is a great underdog character, who with Carney in the lead role, the viewer cannot help but to root for. After showing his dramatic range and winning an Oscar for Best Actor for 1974's "Harry and Tonto" (a personal favorite of mine), Art was offered some terrific roles and gave some great performances. In many ways Carney's performance in "The Late Show" is better then his performances in his other two great films of the seventies, "Harry and Tonto" and "Going In Style". It is a treat and pleasure to watch him in "The Late Show" because it shows a legendary and extroadinarily talented actor in full force.

Thankfully Warner Brothers has released "The Late Show" on DVD (now if only Fox could release "Harry and Tonto" on DVD). For years it was very difficult to get on VHS. While the film may look a little dated, it hooks the viewer with its story and acting that you will be glad that you took a trip back to 1977.