Word: iras
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Assistant District Attorney Ira Wallach declined to comment on Owen's charge...
...this comes by way of introduction to the character of Ira Welles, the aging, washed-up private eye that Art Carney plays in The Late Show. Welles isn't a total Marlowe facsimile, but he comes close. The circumstantial evidence is certainly there in the 25 bills Welles demands for fee and in the way he gets huffy when anyone suggests that he might be playing his game any way but straight. Even his affection for his sloppy $5-a-week room rings a bell; "it may not seem like much to you," he tells visitors in a defensive apology...
TIMES HAVE CHANGED, however, and in The Late Show ulcer-ridden Ira Welles is having trouble learning to digest the new L.A. ambience. He's old, has a bad stomach and a game leg. Besides, no one hires private detectives anymore, unless it's for something screwy like finding a kidnapped cat. This is the first key angle in Robert Benton's script: the once respected and feared detective who's fallen on fallen times. Then there's the other angle: the funny lady who actually does ask him to sleuth down her cat. The woman, Margo Sperling, is played...
...Late Show represents by far the most intelligent and engaging attempt at reincarnation so far. Writer-Director Benton (coauthor of the script for Bonnie and Clyde) has imagined a Philip Marlowe type named Ira Wells (Art Carney), who has outlived his day. He is discovered existing in a rented room on Social Security, watching old movies on TV while his attempt at an autobiography languishes in the typewriter, just one paragraph written. Then his old partner (played by Howard Duff, who was Sam Spade on the radio in the old days) arrives gut-shot at his door, dies...
...steeped in melodrama. A trap set for Sally by James nearly kills her peacemaking niece. James almost kills himself in his pickup truck while returning from Merton's Hideaway, full of rage and beer. Retrospective suicides begin falling out of the family tree: James' mad Uncle Ira, James' tormented son Richard...