Still more lazy thoughts from this one…

Two for the Gloaming – Robert Benton’s PI Tandem

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“You’d think with all that that the world would lose its power to seduce, but you’d be wrong.” ~ Harry Ross

Funny what we glom on to through the years, be it mementos, vestiges, or what we find in the movies we watch. I have made a habit for all three. Maybe it’s thinking you can hold on to things as the years decades go by, if you’re lucky enough to live that long. They say nostalgia is just a tool for battling anxiety and depression, or at the very least it’s what I try to convince my wife of. But the truth is those things that stick in memory just say what mattered to the owner in a time or place.

But lately, it’s the age you reach.

Writer-director Robert Benton has written some of the best and most recognizable pieces of cinema: Bonnie & Clyde (1967), Superman (1977), Kramer vs. Kramer ((1979), Places in the Heart (1984), let alone my all-time favorite neo noir black comedy, The Ice Harvest (2005). Supremely adapted from the 2000 novel of the same name by Scott Phillips. The man is so adept at character development through dialogue, and with the central figures this post is about, it drives my point on the matter.

Most assuredly, writer-director Robert Benton managed this with a pair of private detective films more than twenty years apart. Began to think on this a few years ago when back-to-back screening of the pair landed on that same interval. My appreciation for each only grew since I’ve reached the same approximate stage of each movie lead. Perchance, I’m only projecting — seeing a bit of myself in those noting retirement1 on the horizon.

Knowing too well Lethal Weapon‘s Robert Murtaugh surmised it correctly.

“There are a lot of ways to play any game. I play mine on the house percentages.” ~ Ira Wells

I’m in good company as blogging colleague John Rieber appreciated The Late Show in his blog post from a short while ago

Guess I’ve grown in my tribute of screenwriters-turned-directors of late, which is why these two movies strike a chord with me. This would be because both The Late Show (1977) and Twilight (1998) are stellar treatises on the P.I.2 tale of popular fiction, and old age in particular. Specifically, old men, of who I’m now qualified to weigh on since I’m of that same maturity. My wife can verify this as she’s restricted me from climbing latters, or roofs for that matter, due to my accumulated birthdays.

Now where was I? Oh yeah. Each film taking on those subjects in similar but different ways and casts. The Late Show was packed with underrated character actors finally given chance to chew scenery and steal scenes outside of bit parts or period commercial work they could scrape together. Of course, his Ira Wells character another in the string of fine roles that revived Art Carney’s career after long being Jackie Gleason’s sidekick in the Cavalcade of Stars and The Honeymooners TV series.

Add in Eugene Roche and John Considine, who are a particular joy to watch having a devil of a time as the villainous fence Ron Birdwell and sadistic henchman Jeff Lamar of the story. Plus, Bill Macy branching out from Maude TV series fame accounted for himself well in this mystery with his Charlie Hatter. The one who got the story (and Ira) on its feet by bringing Lily Tomlin‘s Margo Sterling3 into the old PI’s cratering orbit during the ’70s. Everyone here performed their part strikingly.

This his second film for Robert Benton, and both this and Nobody’s Fool (1994) were simply splendid in that regard.

Twilight4 did similarly, but on a different level with a who’s-who cast performing wonderfully in their later years. Starting with screen legend, and my aunts’ favorite actor, with the most famous blue eyes in movie history. Paul Newman bringing a splendid weariness and knowing to his portrayal of Harry Ross. Looking to get by without picking up another bullet along the way as a former sleuth bumming his way with questionable friends in later life.

Joined by a supremely alluring Susan Sarandon (still breathtaking at 51 back then) as movie icon Catherine Ames, who could still captivate any man caught within her gravity well, regardless of secrets (or guilt). Those being Harry, her second husband (the fabled Gene Hackman shining as the dying Jack Ames), and on the periphery, their other “friend” Raymond Hope. The great James Garner bringing his superb screen persona to the character who could only be seen as the anti-Jim Rockford.

Plus, when you have Reese Witherspoon, Giancarlo Esposito, and Liev Schreiber when they were still up-and-coming, along with the great M Emmet Walsh in a totally wordless cameo, and the always reliable John Spencer, Margot Martindale, and Stockard Channing on deck, you had a cast that punched way above its weight.

And both works had one other distinct character in common — the city of Los Angeles…

…and Ira nailed why this town matters to a genre like this one:

“This town doesn’t change – they just push the names around. Same dames… screwin’ up their lives just the same way.”

Like past film noirs, the City of Angels, its people, locations, and vibe always looms large in private eye tales of woe. Little wonder both films were located here, and in two distinct periods. Plus, Robert Benton is well versed in the genre’s framework and its storyline beats5. Moreover, the writer-director has a proven knack for getting the best out of the actors involved with his films. Hell, he had three greats in the latter who had already exceled in showcasing what made P.I. films and TV so good.

Paul Newman having appeared in Harper (1966) and The Drowning Pool (1975), Night Moves (1975) had Gene Hackman, and of course James Garner doing his best in Marlowe (1969) and The Rockford Files (1974-1980).

“Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor. He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.” — “The Simple Art of Murder,” Raymond Chandler

Each film very clearly establishes their protagonists’ late stage of life via their situations, as each has given up on their former trade. Having long seen their better days in the rearview mirror, somewhat settled on the time they have left, waiting on whatever fading physicality may bring. Renting a solitary room from another senior somewhere quiet, like Ira. Or, with Harry living over the garage of a former employer who felt a tad sorry for what their last case, and his life, has done to him.

Hickey & Boggs, The Long Goodbye, and Night Moves; to say the least, “…the quintessential neo noir of the latter half of the 20th century: Chinatown.”

Robert Benton had The Late Show take place during the pivotal 1970s6, which was a unique period for the genre. The PIs during this era were consistently behind the eight ball, with their case outcomes being decidedly bitter, even if they solved it. Look no further than the three I highlighted a few years back that illustrated the collision of the venerable “private dicks” of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett7, and the like, now living through that dejection-filled decade where pessimism reigned8.

Yet, Art Carney’s Ira still manages a better result than the post-Watergate era would normally have allowed — bleeding ulcer, bum leg, and less than jovial ticker, notwithstanding.

In contrast, the writer-director staged Twilight during the Post-Cold War 1990s, where such things like information technology and multiculturalism brought some optimism. Balanced against terrorism, new wars, and HIV, that is. With a Los Angeles revamped and scrubbed, with any despairing remnants of the ’70s injudiciously tucked away somewhere downtown. Harry Ross living rent-free at a lavish urban home, where he earns a few bucks here and there for the newly terminal Jack Ames.

Acting as a “Man Friday”9 running errands that often involve people of dubious backgrounds and sketchy situations, totally unaware of the rumor his “pecker had been shot off” in the incident in Mexico that starts the movie off10.

By the same token, the genre provided a marvelous platform and exposition for these two retirees to finish one last case. All the more, even if they had to be brought into it kicking and screaming, proving they aren’t yet dead, or on a ventilator. Even if Ira longs for his post-WW II era and long-lost profession by holding on to the vernacular like his life depended on it. Both he and Harry, the ex-cop-P.I.-drunk (in that order), know being a detective is one a hell of a way to make a living.

“I’m sorry, doll. What I never told you is this is the hardest goddamn way in the world to make a buck.”

The Late Show and Twilight, the former somewhat forgotten even by older viewers11 (and hardly known at all by the younger), and the latter similarly because it did scant box office upon release, are still excellent detective thrillers. No doubt due to Robert Benton’s stellar dialogue that only brought further appreciation for this category of the crime caper. The writer kept the character discourse snappy but contemporary, enough to please even the most strident of fans, or the most jaded.

“He shot 12 guys with a six-shot revolver. I ain’t arguing with that kind of marksmanship.”

Each one unfolds its mystery to the protagonist and audience alike with old-timey charm, right along with the latter learning what makes the former tick. Deftly juggling tonal shifts between enigma and comedy, amidst its character study of aging. Los Angeles alongside keeping the beat with its seedy ’70s wasteland to the corrupting Hollywood glamour of the ’90s. The wannabes, the small-time hustlers, and the murdering types all at home in either era, just scratching along to make a buck anyway they can.

“Jack Ames couldn’t get blood out of a sock with a washing machine and a bottle of Clorox. Me, I can get blood out of a sock.”

There’s no getting around the fact that Ira and Harry are throwbacks to the 1940s private detectives who made this its own category of pop culture. Yeah, they’ve seen better days, but whether a Sam Spade or a Philip Marlowe could have survived, let alone kept their old-world values intact, into the ‘70s or ’90s is another matter entirely. Still, as I begin to think retirement is creeping ever closer, it’s these two I’d side with, and credit Robert Benton for making that so.

Whether it’s mine or theirs, it’s this pair I’ll hold close for whatever gloaming is to arrive.

  1. Or anything else that’s a stand-in for death. ↩
  2. An abbreviation for a Private Investigator. ↩
  3. This was Lily’s only second movie role, following her surprise dramatic appearance in Robert Altman’s Nashville (1975), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. ↩
  4. Not to be confused with the 2008 sparkling vampire movie I avoid at all costs. ↩
  5. Typically, the private eye starts some simple innocuous matter, like locating someone, getting information, or just an errand, then finding themselves knee-deep in a murder, robbery, and/or kidnapping by the end of the story. Getting beat up along way, too, happens. ↩
  6. Originally, Robert Benton showed his The Late Show script to Robert Altman and hoped he’d direct it. Altman read it, but took on only producing duties because it thought it better that Benton direct the piece. ↩
  7. Actor Howard Duff, the dying, gut-shot ex-P.I. who lands at Ira’s door, portrayed Hammett’s Sam Spade on a radio series during the late-1940s. ↩
  8. Let’s see, we had inflation, multiple gas crises, increased drug use — a good much of that tied to the recession and malaise that followed the Vietnam War — Watergate, societal changes (sexual revolution, Women’s Liberation, Civil Rights, etc.), which prompted many to romanticize the so-called “simpler times” of pre-’60s America. ↩
  9. Defined as a man who helps someone with their work and is loyal and can be trusted. ↩
  10. Robert Benton using this as a unmistakable metaphor for ageing men. ↩
  11. Though Art Carney won the National Society of Film Critics award for this, with Lily Tomlin nominated for a Golden Globe, and Robert Benton’s script nabbing an Academy Award nomination. ↩

4 Responses to “Two for the Gloaming – Robert Benton’s PI Tandem”

  2. johnrieber

    Thanks for the comment and I love how you tied these together while also sharing some of Benton’s other stellar work as well…I love “The Late Show” so much and recently Lily Tomlin appeared on my wife’s TV show and Alex told her how it was one of our favorite films and Lily loved that! She referenced it as her first movie, but you are right “Nashville” was first!

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    • le0pard13

      Thank you, John. Glad to know The Late Show is a common enjoyment. And that’s great to hear about Lily Tomlin. And I have to admit, shamefully, I didn’t know your wife has a TV show. But, I’m now very interested to watch, if you can share that information. 🙂

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