The Late Show (1977)
Grade: 69
"The Late Show" is a crime drama starring Art Carney as an aging private eye and Lily Tomlin as his eccentric sidekick. The action is sometimes muddled, and perhaps Carney's character is too much on top of things, but the film is redeemed by a good script.
Tomlin tries to hire Carney to return her kidnapped cat, who is being held by a drug dealer that Tomlin owes money to. Carney isn't interested until his friend Howard Duff is murdered, and evidence ties to the two crimes to the same culprit. Along with small-time fence Bill Macy (the husband from "Maude"), Tomlin and Carney have multiple confrontations with bad guys who are burglars and murderers. The trail leads to gregarious fence Eugene Roche, his femme fatale wife Joanna Cassidy, and his dim-witted bodyguard.
Your enjoyment of this film may be proportional to your sympathy for Carney's character. Perhaps the film should have been titled "The Geezer Gumshoe" instead. Carney always seems to know what will happen next, and has a predictable but platonic relationship with Tomlin.
"The Late Show" is similar in spirit to 1940s detective flicks such as "The Maltese Falcon" and "The Big Sleep", but with the more graphic language and violence typical of 1970s crime dramas. Especially derivative is Cassidy's character, the beautiful but deadly woman capable of murder and incapable of telling the truth. Mary Astor's character from "The Maltese Falcon" was much more enjoyable.
Still, the plot twists typical of the genre keep things interesting, and Tomlin and Carney have a good screen chemistry.
Robert Benton directed the film, as well as wrote the script. Benton has many successful films under his belt as director and/or writer, including "Bonnie and Clyde", "Superman", "Kramer vs. Kramer" and "Places in the Heart". Carney would make an even better film a few years later, "Going in Style".
kollers@mpsi.net http://members.tripod.com/~Brian_Koller/movies.html
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