The Late Show

“The nicest movie you'll ever see about murder and blackmail.”

Ira Wells (Art Carney) is an aging private detective in Los Angeles who wants to find whoever killed his old partner. The trail runs through a murdered woman, a stack of stolen stamps, a nickel-plated handgun, and a missing cat, and it keeps pulling him toward Margo (Lily Tomlin), a scatterbrained woman who hires him. Robert Benton gives Ira bad hips and a hearing aid, and he keeps working the case anyway.