IMDb > The Late Show (1977)

The Late Show (1977) More at IMDbPro »

Overview

User Rating:
7.0/10   654 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 4% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Robert Benton
Writer:
Robert Benton (writer)
Contact:
View company contact information for The Late Show on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
4 July 1977 (Denmark) more
Genre:
Crime | Mystery | Comedy | Drama more
Tagline:
The nicest movie you'll ever see about murder and blackmail. [Lobby Card] more
Plot Keywords:
Awards:
Nominated for Oscar. Another 3 wins & 4 nominations more
NewsDesk:
Actor Art Carney Dies at 85
 (From IMDb News. 11 November 2003)
User Comments:
One of my top ten overlooked classics more (15 total)

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Art Carney ... Ira Wells

Lily Tomlin ... Margo Sperling
Bill Macy ... Charlie Hatter

Eugene Roche ... Ron Birdwell

Joanna Cassidy ... Laura Birdwell
John Considine ... Lamar
Ruth Nelson ... Mrs. Schmidt
John Davey ... Sergeant Dayton
Howard Duff ... Harry Regan
Lothar Lambert
Beate Hasenau
Cihan Anasai
Dagmar Beiersdorf
Dorothea Moritz
Erika Wilde
more
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Additional Details

Parents Guide:
Add content advisory for parents
Runtime:
93 min
Country:
USA
Language:
English
Color:
Color | Color (Metrocolor)
Aspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono
Certification:
Iceland:16 | Australia:M | Canada:PG | Finland:K-16 | France:U | Sweden:15 | USA:PG
Company:
Lions Gate Films more

Fun Stuff

Quotes:
Ira: I'm not as young as I used to be. more
Movie Connections:
References "The Thin Man" (1957) more
Soundtrack:
What Was more

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User Comments

   (Comment on this title)
15 out of 16 people found the following comment useful.
One of my top ten overlooked classics, 7 July 2000
Author: Mr. Sandman (equalrice@yahoo.com) from San Francisco, California

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.

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