The Late Show

The Late Show (1977) is a crime-comedy written and directed by Robert Benton — watch it online on iFILM. Art Carney plays Ira Wells, an aging Los Angeles private eye whose knees hurt, whose hearing is shot, and whose caseload mostly runs to cheating spouses and missing pets.

When his old partner Harry Regan turns up dead, Wells decides he owes the man a proper resolution. He ends up paired with Margo Sperling, played by Lily Tomlin — a fast-talking eccentric who just wants her cat back and somehow keeps colliding with stolen stamps, a dead body, and a nickel-plated handgun.

Benton wrote the script as a loving study of the hardboiled genre — world-weary detective, tangled loyalties, LA rain — filtered through two performers who share precisely zero of the usual thriller energy. Carney and Tomlin are an odd match that completely works. Stream The Late Show (1977) online on iFILM.